Clive Barker and His Legacy: Theatre Workshop and Theatre Games 9781350128477, 9781350128507, 9781350128484

Table of contents :
Cover
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
CONTENTS
CONTRIBUTORS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: CLIVE’S LEGACY
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 2 CLIVE BARKER: A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY
CHAPTER 3 CLIVE BARKER: MY EINSTEIN
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 4 CLIVE BARKER AND ALTERNATIVE THEATRE
Notes
Bibliography
Abbreviations
CHAPTER 5 CLIVE BARKER AS TRIBAL SCRIBE: MEMORY, EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE AND THE POWER OF ANECDOTES
Introduction
Clive Barker and me
I was there and so were you: establishing the Theatre Workshop community
A culture and practice of rehearsal and performance: notes from the ground
Anecdote and myth-making
Tribal scribe as social barometer
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 6 ‘A NEW TEAM’: CLIVE BARKER AND SHELAGH DELANEY’S THE LION IN LOVE
Littlewood and Delaney
The Lion in Love
A New Team
Auditions and rehearsals
Barker directs
The Lord Chamberlain
At the Belgrade Theatre
At the Royal Court
Afterlife of the New Team
Conclusion
Note on Sources
Acknowledgements
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 7 THEATRE GAINS: REMEMBERING CLIVE
Acknowledgements
CHAPTER 8 CLIVE BARKER AND MOVEMENT
Introduction
Influences
Learning Laban movement
Writing Theatre Games
Balance and alignment
Teaching acting and theatre games
Movement qualities and theatre games
All that jazz (commentaries on the Clocking Game)
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 9 ON SUPPLANTING OLIGARCHY: CLIVE BARKER’S DEFIANT ANTI-AUTHORITARIANISM
The Flow Quartet – Wrocław, European Capital of Culture (Poland), 2016
Collective trauma, democracies and citizen-centred dramaturgy
Poland and Wrocław
Citizen-centred dramaturgy
Citizens
Space
Design (sound and visual)
Dramaturgy
Designing playfulness
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 10 HACKING THE ARCHIVES: THE 2012 OLYMPIC LEGACY, FUN PALACES AND GAME THEATRE
Introduction
The Olympic legacy
Hacking the archives
Hacking public spaces
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
CHAPTER 11 AN EVENING WITH CLIVE BARKER: AN EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A UNIQUE EVENT
Coda
CHAPTER 12 NINE LIVES AND COUNTING
Introduction
Letters to Clive
Notes
Bibliography
APPENDIX I: AUTHORIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PROFESSIONAL CREDITS
APPENDIX II: TEACHING AND TRAINING
INDEX

Citation preview

CLIVE BARKER AND HIS LEGACY

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CLIVE BARKER AND HIS LEGACY THEATRE WORKSHOP AND THEATRE GAMES

Edited by Paul Fryer and Nesta Jones

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METHUEN DRAMA Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, METHUEN DRAMA and the Methuen Drama logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2022 Copyright © Paul Fryer and Nesta Jones, 2022 Paul Fryer, Nesta Jones and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiv constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Ben Anslow Cover image: Still from Theatre Games, The Arts Documentation. Dir. Peter Hulton (© Methuen Drama, 2009) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-2847-7 ePDF: 978-1-3501-2848-4 eBook: 978-1-3501-2849-1 Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

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In loving memory of Simon Trussler, our colleague and friend, who contributed so much to our understanding and enjoyment of theatre.

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CONTENTS

Notes on contributors Acknowledgements

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1

Introduction: Clive’s legacy Nesta Jones and Paul Fryer

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Clive Barker: a biographical memory Simon Trussler

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Clive Barker: my Einstein Murray Melvin

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Clive Barker and alternative theatre Susan Croft

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Clive Barker as tribal Scribe: Memory, Embodied Knowledge and the power of Anecdotes Nadine Holdsworth

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‘A New Team’: Clive Barker and Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion in Love Aleks Sierz

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Theatre gains: remembering Clive Ceri Pitches

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Clive Barker and movement Dick McCaw

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On supplanting oligarchy: Clive Barker’s defiant anti-authoritarianism Chris Baldwin

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10 Hacking the archives: the 2012 Olympic legacy, Fun Palaces and game theatre Joseph Dunne-Howrie

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11 An Evening with Clive Barker: an edited transcript of a unique event edited by Paul Fryer

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12 Nine lives and counting Chrissie Poulter

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Contents

Appendix I: Authorial bibliography and professional credits compiled by Nesta Jones Appendix II: Teaching and training compiled by Nesta Jones Index

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195 203 209

CONTRIBUTORS

Chris Baldwin is a performance director, curator and writer. He is the artistic director and co-founder of CCD Productions. He is known widely for Teatro de Creación (TdC) and citizen-centred dramaturgy (CCD) – approaches to making large-scale performance designed for a place, about that place and made in deep collaboration with the people of that place. He is presently Artistic Director of big events for Kaunas2022 (European Capital of Culture, Lithuania), was Creative Director of Galway2020 (European Capital of Culture, Ireland) and previously Curator of Interdisciplinary Performance for Wrocław2016 (European Capital of Culture, Poland). He directed two large-scale performances as part of the 2012 London Olympics. He also acts as an advisor to cities and rural spaces wishing to develop their cultural policies – in particular within a European context (European Capitals of Culture). He was Cultural Coordinator for Piran4Istria2025 (Slovenia) in its recent shortlisted bid for the ECoC title. His articles, books and plays are published in various languages and his new book on citizencentred dramaturgy is due out in 2021. He regularly teaches and speaks at universities across Europe. His PhD was awarded by the University of Kent. Chris is also a permaculture designer. Susan Croft is a writer, curator, archive advisor and Director of Unfinished Histories, the oral and archival history project on alternative theatre in Britain: www.unfinishedhistories.com. She also runs SuffrageArts, exploring the suffrage movement through art and theatre in exhibitions, events and workshops; and in 2020 set up the blog Her Inside: Women in the Lockdown to gather creative responses, historical and contemporary, to women’s experience of social isolation and lockdown. Founder Director of New Playwrights Trust, she went on to work in teaching performance studies at Nottingham Trent University and leading live art/performance research at Manchester Metropolitan University before becoming Senior Curator (Contemporary Performance) at the V&A Theatre Museum from 1998 to 2005. She was Clive Barker Research Fellow at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance from 2008 to 2018. Her publications include: She Also Wrote Plays: An International Guide to Women Playwrights (2001), ix

Contributors

Black and Asian Performance at the Theatre Museum: A Users’ Guide (2004), How the Vote Was Won: Art, Theatre and Women’s Suffrage (with V. I. Cockroft, 2010) and the anthologies Votes for Women and Other Plays (2009), Classic Plays by Women (2010) and Thousands of Noras: Short Plays by Women 1875–1920 (with Sherry Engle, 2015). She has curated major exhibitions at the V&A on Edward Gordon Craig and Tanya Moiseiwitsch; Paul Robeson; Architects of Fantasy / Forkbeard Fantasy; and the Redgraves and their history on the public stage. As a freelance curator she has created acclaimed exhibitions on women’s suffrage, on Black theatre in Britain and numerous exhibitions and displays on aspects of alternative theatre history. Joseph Dunne-Howrie is a module year coordinator at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. His research interests include the politics of digital culture, internet-based dramaturgies, participatory and immersive theatre, performance documentation, archives, and performative writing. He has previously taught at the University of East London, Mountview Academy and City, University of London. He has published articles and book reviews in Performance Research, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media and Stanislavski Studies. He writes about theatre and higher education on his blog josephdunnehowrie.com and on Twitter @MemoryDetritus. Paul Fryer is an academic, researcher, author and editor. Originally trained as an actor at the Guildhall School, he holds an MA from the University of London and a PhD from the University of Manchester. He is a visiting professor at the Universities of Leeds, East London and London South Bank. He has published ten books, the most recent of which is a new Englishlanguage edition of Viktor Simov: Stanislavsky’s Designer (2020); previous books include Lina Cavalieri (2004), The Opera Singer and The Silent Film (2005) and A Chronology of Opera Performances at The Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg (2009). He has also contributed articles and chapters to publications for Routledge, l’Âge d’Homme, Columbia University Press, Cambridge Scholars and Indiana University Press. He has given guest lectures at universities in the USA, Canada, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Malta, and presented film screenings in London, New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington DC, Boston, San Francisco and St Petersburg (Russia). He was a regular presenter for the Library of Congress Film Division and for Buxton Festival, and for Seattle Opera and Canadian Opera in Toronto. Paul is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Stanislavski Studies, and Series Editor of Stanislavsky And . . . . He is the founder and co-director x

Contributors

of The Stanislavsky Research Centre, and the co-convenor of The S Word research project. Nadine Holdsworth is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick. She has research interests in theatre and national identities, popular theatre practitioners, arts and homelessness, and amateur creativity and cultural participation. She is the author of English Theatre and Social Abjection: A Divided Nation (2020), Joan Littlewood’s Theatre (2011), Theatre & Nation (2010), Joan Littlewood (2006, second edition 2017) and co-author of The Ecologies of Amateur Theatre (2018). She edited Theatre and National Identity: Reimagining Conceptions of Nation (2014) and co-edited A Concise Companion to British and Irish Drama (2008) and an issue of Contemporary Theatre Review on ‘Theatre, Performance and the Amateur Turn’ (2017). Nesta Jones is Professor Emerita of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, where she was formerly Head of Graduate Studies and Director of Research. She has long associations with several other institutions of higher education, including: Goldsmiths, University of London where she was Reader in Theatre Arts and Head of Drama for many years; Trinity College, University of Dublin, as a researcher, external assessor and lecturer; the founding and development of The Lir, Ireland’s National Academy of Dramatic Art; and New York University in London where she lectures and is a Distinguished Research Fellow. She has published on playwrights Brian Friel, Sean O’Casey, J. M. Synge, David Mamet and Tanika Gupta; directors Cicely Berry and Ken Russell; historical and contemporary performance and production processes; and educational drama. She was a founder of and project co-ordinator for CONCEPTS (Consortium for the Co-ordination of European Performance and Theatre Studies), a member of the Council of Europe’s Forum of Cultural Networks; has organized theatre practice-related transnational events and symposia supported by the British Council, the Soros Foundation, the European Commission, the Goethe Institute and the European Cultural Foundation; has contributed numerous papers to and participated in panels at national and international conferences; and has directed productions, conducted professional workshops and chaired expert seminars in the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe (East and West), the Middle East and North America. She is on the editorial board of Stanislavski Studies and is a contributing editor for New Theatre Quarterly; and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. xi

Contributors

Dick McCaw was co-founder of the Actors Touring Company in 1978, and of the Medieval Players in 1981. Between 1993 and 2001 he was Director of the International Workshop Festival for whom he curated nine festivals featuring major figures in the performing arts. Since 2004 Dick McCaw has been Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. He has edited and introduced two books: With an Eye for Movement (on Warren Lamb’s development of Rudolph Laban’s movement theories; 2006) and The Laban Sourcebook (2011) which was translated into Hebrew in 2018. He has written three books: Bakhtin and Theatre (2016), with a Portuguese translation being published in Brazil in 2021; The Actor’s Body: A Guide (2018) and Rethinking the Actor’s Body: Dialogues with Neuroscience (2020). He is currently working on Laban in Perspectives, drawn from interviews about and unpublished writings by Rudolf Laban. He was a founding editor of the Training Grounds pages of Theatre, Dance and Performance Training for whom he wrote a number of articles. He has written a number of articles and chapters on the subjects of actor training, movement training, and neuroscience and performer training. He qualified as a Feldenkrais practitioner in 2007, and became an Instructor of Wu Family Tai Chi Chuan in 2016. Ceri Pitches (Edwards) was taught by Clive Barker as a Theatre Studies undergraduate at the University of Warwick (1988–91). She had a twelveyear career as a secondary school Head of Department and Drama and English teacher, as well as a period managing the schools’ learning programme at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, before returning to full-time study for a PhD at the University of Leeds. Her research into the performed heritage of the Science Museum Group Explainer role was conducted in collaboration with some of the museums in the Science Museum Group and led to her interest in the relationship between academic research and its real-world applications. She received her PhD in 2017 and now works with researchers in the Schools of Music, English, and Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds, finding ways to maximize the real-world impact of their work, foster collaborations with local, national and global industrial partners, and develop approaches to research that respond to contemporary challenges. Chrissie Poulter was born and is now retired in Yorkshire. She joined a youth drama group at age fifteen and spent her summers in street theatre projects and ‘dramascapes’ led by Carry Gorney’s Interplay, child of ED Berman’s Inter-Action and their open-air theatre games. Clive Barker let her xii

Contributors

in to ‘do Drama’ at Birmingham University in the 1970s and she went back there a few years later to teach what had been his classes. A life-long practitioner of drama workshops, theatre-making and training, she has worked in neighbourhoods, projects and universities in the UK and Ireland, inter-nationally and inter-locally. She has been a lecturer at Birmingham University, Leeds Trinity University, Accrington & Rossendale College and, for thirty years, at Trinity College Dublin. As an arts policy-maker, she was Drama Officer and later Assistant Director (Arts) with Yorkshire Arts Association in the 1980s, a member of the Northern Ireland Arts Council in the 1990s and of the Board of IETM (international network for contemporary performing arts) in the early 2000s. As a theatre-maker (deviser, director and writer) she has made work in Ireland (North and South), France, Greece, Poland, the Basque Country, Italy and England. She is the author of Playing the Game (1987), a book of drama games and how to play them – written first for local adults leading drama workshops in Belfast neighbourhoods. In 2018 the second edition was published, revised to include a more sensitive/ sensitized approach in light of experience over the years and an everdeveloping awareness of how challenging and inaccessible any form of groupwork can be for some people. For over a decade now she has described her focus as ‘guardianship in groupwork’ and has been teaching, writing and speaking about this whenever and wherever she gets the chance. Aleks Sierz FRSA is a journalist, broadcaster, lecturer and theatre critic. His seminal study, In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today (2001), defined a new generation of playwrights and their work. His subsequent books include The Theatre of Martin Crimp (2006, second edition 2013), John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (2008), Rewriting the Nation: British Theatre Today (2011) and Modern British Playwriting: The 1990s (2012). He has also coauthored, with Lia Ghilardi, The Time Traveller’s Guide to British Theatre: The First Four Hundred Years (2015). His latest book is Good Nights Out: A History of Popular British Theatre Since the Second World War (2021).

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance that they have received in the compilation and preparation of this book. Our thanks go to Murray Melvin, who worked with Clive at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, for his help, support and encouragement from the very beginning of this project; to Dr Susan Croft and the Unfinished Histories Project, Helen Melody, Lead Curator, Contemporary Literary and Creative Archives at the British Library and Frank Trew, Librarian at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, for assistance sourcing photographs for the book; to Nigel Hook for his assistance digitizing and preparing images; and special thanks to Anna and Nick Trussler for their kind permission to use their father Simon’s unfinished memoir in this collection.

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CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: CLIVE’S LEGACY Nesta Jones and Paul Fryer

This book is not a biography of Clive Barker, although inevitably it contains much biographical information. Rather, it is an attempt to explore his continuing legacy through a series of responses to the many and varied aspects of his work: his early and highly formative years with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop; a varied career as an actor and director/ deviser/creator in both the established environments of repertory/regional theatre and the West End, and the highly creative (political) world of the ‘alternative’ theatre of the 1960s and 1970s; the development of his own approach to performance which led to the publication of his seminal book Theatre Games, and beyond; an academic career in the UK university and training sectors; a range of highly influential writing including his early association with Theatre Quarterly (TQ ), and his joint editorship of New Theatre Quarterly (NTQ ). This is only a partial list because to describe Clive as a man of eclectic interests is something of an understatement. Could ‘polymath’ be an appropriate word, or perhaps in its best and most positive sense, ‘the consummate generalist’? It seemed that Clive could engage in a meaningful conversation on just about any topic, and would have something worthwhile to contribute on any subject, because he shared so many interests – able to talk just as enthusiastically on Shakespeare and Brecht as he would on Madonna or Morecambe and Wise. That broadness of interest is reflected in the range of chapters included in this collection. Each of the authors has a very direct connection to Clive, either personally, having worked with him or been taught by him at some stage of his career, or has been fundamentally influenced by his work. Few people knew Clive better than the late Simon Trussler, his colleague at New Theatre Quarterly, who provided us with a biographical ‘memory’ of Clive, which sadly remained unfinished at the time of Simon’s own death in 2019. Murray Melvin joined Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop at the Theatre Royal Stratford East as an assistant stage manager in 1957, and appeared on stage with Clive in The Hostage and Oh What a Lovely War.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy

Susan Croft identifies Clive as ‘a man for the alternative approach’, utilizing not only her own invaluable project, Unfinished Histories, but also her experience of Clive’s own archive, gained as Clive Barker Research Fellow at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. Nadine Holdsworth first encountered Clive when he interviewed her for a place to study on his theatre programme at the University of Warwick. She explores his experiences with Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop. Aleks Sierz, distinguished theatre critic and specialist in contemporary British theatre, explores Barker’s first opportunity to flex his muscles as a professional director, of Shelagh Delaney’s ill-fated second play, The Lion in Love (1960). Ceri Pitches remembers Clive from their first meeting in 1988, when she became his student at Warwick. She provides a snapshot of Barker the university teacher, ‘enigmatic and esoteric’, ‘puzzling and often provocative’. Dick McCaw, who authored the introduction to the second edition of Theatre Games (2010) and collaborated with Clive on the International Workshop Festival, focuses on the importance of movement in Barker’s work. Chris Baldwin, who chaired the ‘Evening with Clive Barker’ event in 2003 (see Chapter 11) explores Barker’s ‘defiant anti-authoritarianism’, tracing his influence through the development of Teatro de Creación, and several large-scale European projects. Joseph Dunne-Howrie has interrogated the archives in order to assess ‘Barker’s legacy in the future tense’, examining the influence of the notion of Fun Palaces and Game Theatre upon the legacy of the 2012 London Olympics. Chrissie Poulter’s first encounter with Clive, when she became one of his students at Birmingham University in 1973, established a close, influential and long-lasting link which she explores here via a series of ‘Letters to Clive’. She revisits Barker’s writings via Theatre Games, and other sources, testing our understanding of these ideas in a contemporary context. One of the challenges in compiling this book was to find a phrase which would sum up the different aspects of Clive’s life, career and influence. In choosing a title, we finally settled upon two parts of his career which seem, in some ways, to encapsulate origins and outcomes: his early work with Joan Littlewood’s legendary Theatre Workshop with whom Clive worked from 1955, and the publication of the seminal book for which he is now best known, Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training, first published by Eyre Methuen in 1977. After Clive died in 2005, the journal with which he was so closely associated as co-editor with Simon Trussler, New Theatre Quarterly, published an edition to celebrate his ‘life, work and legacy’ – only the second time that the journal had published an issue devoted to a single person. 2

Introduction: Clive’s Legacy

Many distinguished contributors offered personal insights and analyses of his work, but perhaps the most revealing of all comes in the form of an article entitled, ‘A Brief History of Clive Barker’, written by the man himself. This article provides the link to the first part of this book’s title: ‘All of my life has been a search for a community – and in saying this I do not mean to devalue the importance to me of my children and grandchildren. This search has thrown me into two tribes. The first was Theatre Workshop’.1 At the end of his training at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, he was introduced to Littlewood’s work by the designer John Blezard. He contacted John Bury to ask for work and came to London, where he ‘met Joan Littlewood and became an actor’2 (although, in reality, he described his new job as ‘stage manager and bit-part actor’3). He made his debut in the Lope de Vega play, Fuente Ovejuna. Clive claims: ‘The other tribe is the group of practitioners and scholars who centre on Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret. With them I feel at home.’4 Barba describes Clive’s emergence from Theatre Workshop ‘as an actor and director, expert in theatre games, an intellectual and a university teacher, with one foot in the library and the other on the stage. He had devoured his master, didn’t always have her before his eyes as a warning and a constraint. He bore her in his guts.’5 Barba and Barker met in 1980 in London during Odin Teatret’s first visit to the UK, based at the Cardiff Theatre Laboratory. Barba recalled that Clive travelled to Wales ‘several times . . . not only to see our performances, but also to observe barters and anonymous working situations in faraway villages. He was the only one who displaced himself in an effort to grasp our theatre better, without limiting his knowledge of it to the impressions of just one performance’.6 Barba valued their collaboration of many years enabled through Clive’s base at Theatre Quarterly and New Theatre Quarterly, and his at Odin Teatret and ISTA, the International School of Theatre Anthropology, ‘but above all with a glass in our hands, walking, travelling by car, speaking on the phone, making brief and intense sorties among possible theatres during his visits to Holstebro and his hospitality in Warwick.’7 The actor Brian Murphy joined the Theatre Workshop company at the same time as Clive in 1955, and later made the point that they were ‘often clinging together for support in [their] efforts to understand the method, vagaries and waywardness of the genius of Joan Littlewood’.8 They first appeared together in The Sheep Well (Fuente Ovejuna) in September 1955, and later in Ewan McColl’s adaptation of The Good Soldier Schweik (1956) and the musical Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be (1959). In 1958 Clive 3

Clive Barker and His Legacy

originated the role of the Volunteer in the celebrated production of Brendan Behan’s The Hostage which transferred from the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1959 to Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End. Wyndham’s was also the home for the transfer of Littlewood’s legendary production Oh What a Lovely War in 1960, in which Clive also appeared and which ‘provided an opportunity to sum up what I had learned as well as being a very stimulating experience.’9 Many of Clive’s carefully considered thoughts about working with Littlewood were included in The Theatre Workshop Story by Howard Goorney, who thanked him ‘for his wise counsel’ and for introducing him to the publisher, Eyre Methuen; and later as a chapter on Littlewood’s approach and techniques in Actor Training, edited by Alison Hodge.10 A more subjective response, however, is articulated in Clive’s NTQ tribute article, ‘Closing Joan’s Book: Some Personal Footnotes’. Here, although he claimed that ‘life with Theatre Workshop was never comfortable’ and despite his critical commentary on Littlewood’s contradictory character, he nevertheless acknowledged her perceptiveness and understanding with regard to his own development: But of one thing I am sure: that through her I was able to access the history and experience of the European theatre of the late years of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth. Through Joan I met Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Copeau, Laban, Jouvet, the Constructivists, the Expressionists, the Futurists, the Bauhaus, not to mention Chinese theatre – and Brecht, however much Joan protested she was detached from him. I owe her a great deal for provoking me . . . I don’t remember Joan teaching me anything. I learned on the job. This must have been her judgement of my character – that I learn best what I work out myself. What I learned was from odd remarks, mostly off the cuff, during rehearsals – which I used to attend assiduously, even when I wasn’t called. I taught myself to direct by watching her work . . . I am nothing but grateful, and consider myself rarely fortunate that she had the patience and generosity to let me watch her work and access her genius.11 Noting Clive’s move into the world of teaching, Murphy also recalled that ‘Clive and I considered becoming a double-act, Chuch and Doodles. The world of comedy will never know what it missed. But hundreds of students will remember an inspired mentor.’12 4

Introduction: Clive’s Legacy

Soon after leaving Theatre Workshop, Clive directed The Lion in Love by Shelagh Delaney at the Royal Court Theatre as well as productions of plays by Mrozek, Gorky and Brecht at regional theatres and festivals. He was appointed acting coach at the Bühnen der Stadt, Cologne, West Germany in 1974 where he also directed the German premieres of Lay By, multi-authored by several of the UK’s most successful young playwrights, and the American play, You Can’t Take It With You.13 His time as Associate Director at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter, included a production in 1975 of Home by David Storey, followed by Der Jasager and Mahagonny by Brecht and Weill at the Edinburgh Festival. In 1976 he took on the challenge of producing Leonard Bernstein’s Mass, performed at both Coventry Theatre and the Royal Albert Hall, London; and in the 1980s he directed Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus in Weimar, GDR, and the rarely staged Oroonoko by Thomas Southerne in Bogotá, Colombia.14 In 1961 he was asked to ‘reproduce’ a production of The Hostage for the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith. On purchasing a copy of the script he realized ‘that it bore no relationship to any performance we had given’. When he brought this to the attention of the publishers, Methuen, he was commissioned to ‘make a clear and accurate text’. Littlewood approved of his revisions, particularly to the raid, a scene where ‘she had never had any clear idea of what is happening in it’. The published script and Theatre Workshop’s production was based on a translation of Behan’s original Irish play An Giall. The Hostage is not so loosely based on the original. The crafty cow [Littlewood] encouraged us to improvise and then fed lines from An Giall. I rang [Howard] Goorney . . . and put certain lines to him. ‘Who wrote this?’ ‘I did,’ he said. But he didn’t. It was all in the original. I have been asked in the past, ‘Who wrote The Hostage?’ and I always answer, ‘I did,’ which to some extent is true.15 In a more conventional commission Clive co-translated Brecht’s The Days of the Commune for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 1977 production at the Aldwych Theatre, published by Eyre Methuen in 1978.16 Eugenio Barba was intrigued by Clive’s concern for ‘known and anonymous groups whose work he followed in England, sympathetic to their struggle for a theatre freed from literary bonds’. Clive grappled with notions of the fringe and alternative theatre, which he attempted to explore in articles for publications,17 but he was also practically engaged through his involvement with Inter-Action and Almost Free Theatre, both founded by 5

Clive Barker and His Legacy

ED Berman who observed of his colleague, ‘He had everything needed to get to the very top – except a killer punch’.18 Clive’s other important professional relationship during the 1960s and 1970s was with playwright Arnold Wesker and his initiative, Centre 42, initially conceived as a touring festival to bring art and culture to working-class towns throughout the UK, but eventually located permanently at the Roundhouse in Camden, London. Clive was a member of the Board of Directors from its inception in 1961 until its dissolution in 1970. Later in a Wesker Casebook, Clive contributed a chapter, ‘Vision and Reality: Their Very Own and Golden City and Centre 42’, incorporating the title of Wesker’s play, a fictionalization of his struggles to realize the project.19 He also performed for both organizations, creating the title role in Bernard Kops’s Enter Solly Gold for Centre 42 in 1962, and Inspector Foot in Tom Stoppard’s After Magritte for Ambiance, Almost Free Theatre’s lunch-hour club, in 1970. Clive considered these two small-scale projects infinitely more worthwhile than the disaster-prone West End musical Twang!!, which he still included in his CV but with four exclamation marks in the title.20 Clive’s championing of inclusive theatre was exemplified by his support for the Albatross Arts Project and Geese Theatre, working within criminal justice and social welfare settings; and Open Theatre, a non-verbal physical theatre company which collaborates with young people with learning disabilities. He was also on the Board of Trustees of East 15 Acting School, founded by Margaret Bury to carry the Theatre Workshop approach into the training of actors; and contributed to UNESCO seminars on theatre and community, writing reports for the organization on popular theatre and street theatre in Britain. Eugenio Barba also noted Clive’s interest in theatre across Europe, South America and Asia: He astonished me by his curiosity and open-mindedness, as if Britain were the island of his exile and not a world where theatre people did not let themselves be distracted by what happens elsewhere. He was substantially different from his colleagues. It is said that islands are not isolated. Clive was a true interpreter of an island’s culture: always on the point of departing, attracted by what lies over the sea, what separates and unites.21 Clive was an intrepid traveller and Barba’s observation is evidenced by the extraordinary number of papers and lectures he delivered at international 6

Introduction: Clive’s Legacy

conferences, the publications he contributed to, the workshops he conducted, and the committees and boards he served on for arts organizations and educational institutions in diverse countries across three continents. Typically, in 1977, he spoke at a Kolloquium in a divided Berlin and wrote for Rostock University’s publications; was a regular contributor to Shakespeare Jahrbuch, published in Weimar; and in 1981 he was appointed British Council Exchange Fellow at Humboldt University – all in the former German Democratic Republic. From 1990 Clive taught at universities in South Africa; contributed to conferences and publications in Morocco; and conducted workshops at academies in Bangladesh and India. In South America, Clive taught at the Institute of Dramatic Arts, Havana, and contributed to the Cuban performing arts journal, Tablas. However, it was in Colombia from the early 1980s that he was significantly influential in the education of young people, through institutional engagements in Medellín, Cali and, particularly, Bogotá, of which he spoke with great warmth and affection. In 1966 Clive was appointed Lecturer in Theatre Practice by the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham where he stayed until 1974, after which he wrote a comprehensive account of his experience for a TQ article, ‘The Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama’. He considered his appointment ‘a brave one since my qualifications were all from the theatre and in no way in line with normal academic qualifications . . . But to the Drama Department . . . this diversity was a positive asset – whilst for me the department offered the opportunity . . . of affording time and facilities for the further study of all aspects of the history and practice of theatre’. In addition to developing theatre practice in the curriculum, the only other requirement was that he should publish a book in the first three years. But Clive found that the ‘sheer body of work in that time prevented this, and I wasn’t ready to write it. In the event the requirement was shelved, although I felt that throughout my time at Birmingham that I ought to do it to justify my existence.’ The article concludes: I still believe passionately that a close involvement of the worlds of scholarship and professional theatre practice can only be to the benefit of both, and that everything should be done to bring about this in whatever ways are possible, or can be made possible. Certainly, I would be sorry if I thought I was going to lose contact with the world of scholarship for long. I have learned to speak both languages, so I can 7

Clive Barker and His Legacy

offer my services as an interpreter: but for me at present the way leads back to the stage door.22 Clive, of course, wrote the book, Theatre Games, and only a year later in 1975 was appointed to the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Warwick where he stayed until 1996, as a senior lecturer and chair of the department; and here, in addition to university commitments, he was able to pursue allied professional activities. Clive’s legacy is assured at the university by the Annual Clive Barker Award, designed to support students to create a performance piece for an appropriate public platform. Clive’s influence and impact in the UK education and training sectors continued well into the later stages of his career, during which he gave numerous guest lectures and ran numerous workshops, at a wide range of organizations and institutions such as the University of Rome, the Centre for Performance Research, Aberystwyth, and the University of Tehran; served as an external examiner at HEIs including Goldsmiths, University of London, and the Welsh College of Music and Drama; and sat on several boards:

Figure 1 Clive teaching at the London Studio Centre, 1996. Copyright Simon Richardson. 8

Introduction: Clive’s Legacy

Directing and Acting Boards of the National Council for Drama Training, the Board of Trustees of East 15 Acting School, and the Academic Board of the London Centre for Islamic Studies. Moreover, he continued to write articles in this area for NTQ , including ‘Games in Education and Theatre’, on the function of play and the dangers of institutionalization, and ‘What Training – for What Theatre’, on the aesthetics and economics of the academy and the conservatoire.23 Clive’s intermittent association with Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance (RBC) was formalized in 1997 when he was appointed a Visiting Professor involved in teaching and workshop contributions to symposia on actor/director training.24 In 2000 Clive and Simon Trussler were appointed Senior Research Fellows; and in late 2004 both were appointed Professors of RBC. Clive slowly assembled and transported his extensive personal archive to the College where it is housed in the Special Collections & Archives adjacent to The Clive Barker Library, which was named in a ceremony by Eugenio Barba in 2005.25 In October 2003, colleagues at RBC organized a weekend event, ‘Theatre Games – A Celebration of the Work of Clive Barker’. This proved to be a lively and informative occasion involving an evening encounter in The Rose Theatre (see Chapter 11); a series of workshops led by practitioners who had been influenced by Clive’s work variously as teacher, director, and author of Theatre Games; and a plenary, followed by informal discussions in the bar.26 Clive acknowledged his gratitude to Eugenio Barba for introducing him to ‘the image of the Master as a gate rather than an authority’, and how Barba had constructed ‘a family tree for himself, in which Meyerhold and Stanislavsky are his grandfathers and Grotowski is his cousin.’ Clive reflected: I know where I come from, and if I had to put a name to them, Piscator and Copeau are my grandfathers, Stanislavsky is my uncle: these people have opened gates for me leading to such influences as Delsarte and other movement pioneers. Copeau has had an enormous influence on me, as have his colleagues, such as Jouvet and Dullin, and, of course, my hero, Jean-Louis Barrault. . . . But then I think what influence can I be? I don’t have a school. Nobody ‘follows’ me. Recently Rose Bruford College . . . laid on a weekend to celebrate my work. Nine artists turned up, whom I had either taught or who had taken things from my work in developing their own, to run workshops with students. Their work was very impressive and I was flattered. In this sense I hope I have been a gate.27 9

Clive Barker and His Legacy

Notes 1. Barker, 2007, 295. 2. Ibid., 298. 3. Ibid., 299. 4. Ibid., 295. 5. Barba, 293. 6. Ibid., 293. 7. Ibid., 293. 8. Murphy, 24. 9. Barker, 2007, 301. 10. Goorney, xii; Barker, 2010, 130–43. 11. Barker, 2003, 101, 102, 104, 107. 12. Murphy, 24. 13. Lay By, a collaborative script by Howard Brenton, Brian Clark, Trevor Griffiths, David Hare, Stephen Poliakoff, Hugh Stoddart, Snoo Wilson, first staged by Portable Theatre, directed by Snoo Wilson, at the Edinburgh Festival, 1971; You Can’t Take It With You by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, premiered at the Booth Theatre, NYC, 1936; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, 1937; adapted for the screen, 1938. 14. Barker’s production of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe (c. 1590) was performed at the Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar, GDR, in 1983; and Oroonoko by Thomas Southerne (1696) at the Teatro Colón, Bogotá, Colombia, in 1986. 15. Barker recalled this experience in an email conversation with June Favre during her research for a PhD on Joan Littlewood and the Theatre Workshop’s production of Behan’s The Hostage. Favre included some of these exchanges in her article, ‘Did Clive Barker Write The Hostage?’, 2007. 16. Brecht, 1978; used for the RSC production directed by Howard Davies at the Aldwych Theatre, London, 1977/8, where the ensemble included Cherie Lunghi, Ian McDiarmid, Ian McKellen and Ruby Wax. 17. These included: ‘From Fringe to Alternative’, H. Hohne (ed.), Political Development on the British Stage in the Sixties and Seventies, Rostock: Rostock University, 1977, 60–85; ‘Alternative Theatre/Political Theatre’, G. Holderness (ed.), The Politics of Theatre and Drama, London: Macmillan, 1991, 18–43. 18. Barker, 2007, 301. 19. Barker, 1998, 89–98. 20. Twang!! by Lionel Bart (book, music, lyrics) and Harvey Orkin and Bert Shevelove (book), Shaftesbury Theatre, 1965; originally directed by Joan Littlewood who left the production before it opened; after a tumultuous rehearsal period it eventually opened to unfavourable reviews and ran for only 43 performances to half-empty houses.

10

Introduction: Clive’s Legacy 21. Barba, 293. 22. Barker, 1974–5, 67. 23. Barker, 1989, 227–35; Barker, 1995, 99–108. 24. Actor/Director Training – Brecht, Symposium, Keynote: Manfred Wekwerth, Berliner Ensemble, The Rose Theatre, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, 2000. 25. A celebration of the life of Clive Barker and the naming of The Clive Barker Library by Eugenio Barba, followed by a presentation, ‘The Flying Carpet’ by Julia Varley, Odin Teatret, Friday 21 October 2005. 26. The workshop leaders were Chris Baldwin (who also hosted ‘An Evening with Clive Barker’), Frankie Cosgrove, Didi Hopkins, Chris Johnston, Dick McCaw (who also chaired the plenary), June Mitchell, Chrissie Poulter, Steve Tiller and David Zoob. 27. Barker, 2007, 301–2.

Bibliography Barba, E., ‘Clive Barker: Man of Counterpoint’, New Theatre Quarterly, 23:4, November 2007. Barker, C., ‘The Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama’, Theatre Quarterly, 4:16, November 1974–January 1975. Barker, C., ‘Games in Education and Theatre’, New Theatre Quarterly, 5:19, 1989. Barker, C., ‘What Training – for What Theatre?’, New Theatre Quarterly, 11:42, 1995. Barker, C., ‘Vision and Reality: Their Very Own and Golden City and Centre 42’, in R. W. Dornan (ed.), Arnold Wesker: A Casebook, New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1998. Barker, C., ‘Closing Joan’s Book: Some Personal Footnotes’, New Theatre Quarterly, 19:2, May 2003. Barker, C., ‘A Brief History of Clive Barker’, New Theatre Quarterly, 23:4, November 2007. Barker, C., ‘Joan Littlewood’, in A. Hodge (ed.), Actor Training, 2nd edn, London: Routledge, 2010. (First edition published as Twentieth Century Actor Training, 1999.) Brecht, B., Days of the Commune, trans. C. Barker with Arno K. Reinfrank, London: Eyre Methuen, 1978. Favre, J., ‘Did Clive Barker write The Hostage?’, New Theatre Quarterly, 23:4, November 2007. Goorney, H., The Theatre Workshop Story, London: Eyre Methuen, 1981. Murphy, B., ‘Clive Barker’, The Stage, 12 May 2005.

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12

CHAPTER 2 CLIVE BARKER: A BIOGRAPHICAL MEMORY Simon Trussler

Simon Trussler (1942–2019), a distinguished and influential writer, researcher, editor, teacher and typesetter, was one of Clive Barker’s closest friends and collaborators, their relationship lasting for more than forty years. When we began to plan this collection, we made an early decision that Simon would be the obvious person to write a foreword. He agreed. But sadly, he died in late 2019. Some months before his death, Simon sent us an incomplete draft of his planned contribution to the book and we have included it here, as he wrote it. This ‘biographical memory’ provides a most vivid, personal recollection of a friendship and professional relationship which has provided, particularly via their work on New Theatre Quarterly (NTQ), an invaluable contribution to theatre scholarship.

The first time I met Clive Barker, in latish 1962, was over a pint – in the crowded but comradely little bar of Unity Theatre, long fallen victim to fire (probably primed by its treacherous lighting board). Our last meeting – early in 2005, shortly before his death – was in the spacious foyer of the National’s Lyttelton Theatre, which became the regular venue for our gettogethers as editors of New Theatre Quarterly. That was over a pint, too. Our introduction was through a mutual friend, after a performance at Unity of Brecht’s The Visions of Simone Machard. I wanted to persuade Clive to write for the little theatre magazine Prompt, begun while I was an undergraduate at University College London. That same evening, I also met through Clive the theatre’s veteran manager, Heinz Bernard – the director of Simone Machard – who also agreed to contribute. Prompt was a precarious venture which struggled on for I think a dozen issues – by contrast with NTQ , which became a respected academic journal published by Cambridge University Press, and as I write has just reached its one hundred and fortieth issue. For the first twenty years until his death, Clive was my fellow editor. * 13

Clive Barker and His Legacy

Clive had made his debut as director at the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, with Michael Gilbert’s thriller A Clean Kill. This was two years before I first came across his work – his production of Shelagh Delaney’s second play, The Lion in Love, from a five-bob seat in the precipitous upper circle of the Royal Court, where it had transferred from the Belgrade, Coventry, early in 1962. A little later that year, Clive directed the revival at the Lyric Hammersmith of Brendan Behan’s The Hostage, having played the Volunteer in the original production at Stratford East. I saw that twice – the second time having persuaded a few friends from home that this was the best way of rounding off their day in town. We sang ‘The Bells of Hell Go Ting-a-ling-a-ling’ on the tube afterwards with the same gusto as on a previous visit we had giggled over imitations of Alan Bennett’s sermon in Beyond the Fringe. Clive was then nearing the end of the formative phase of his career with Theatre Workshop, though in 1964 he joined the cast of Oh What a Lovely War when it transferred to Wyndham’s Theatre. This production also marked the end of Workshop’s glory days, depleted as the company had become by just such bloodletting to the West End. In the following year he was also in Twang!!, the disastrous Lionel Bart musical from which Joan Littlewood quit as director before the opening, and which cost Bart his personal fortune. Insofar as there was ever a ‘Workshop method’, which Joan denied, it was based not only in technique but in research. As Clive recalled: ‘Through Joan I met Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, Copeau, Laban, Jouvet, the Constructivists, the Expressionists, the Futurists, the Bauhaus, not to mention Chinese theatre – and Brecht, however much Joan protested that she was detached from him.’ And when Littlewood went off in a doomed attempt to create her Fun Palace in the East End, she intended it not only as a ‘laboratory of fun’ but also ‘a university of the streets’. So, while Clive became a respected academic in two university drama departments, it was as a ‘scholar clown’, without even a formal first degree, let alone the doctorate that would be the usual expectation today. * Clive was born in Middlesbrough in 1931 – so, like many of those who helped to remould British theatre in the 1950s, he was a young man in the post-war years, when the reforming Labour government created the welfare state. Clive’s first job was with the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance during the preparatory period before the enactment of the National Health Service in 1948. His task was visiting ‘cases’ about whose needs a decision had to be made. ‘What I discovered from these visits,’ he 14

Clive Barker: A Biographical Memory

wrote, ‘was that although I belonged in the working class there were levels of poverty well below mine. I gained something of an education in how people lived and had been living for a long time in Britain.’ He recalled one shellshocked veteran of the First World War ‘who was living with his wife on two shillings and sixpence a week . . . He gave me a recipe for getting rid of acne spots.’ Then came the two years of compulsory national service. He was on a troop ship in June 1950 when the Korean War broke out: ‘Half of us got off at Singapore, the other half sailed on to Korea.’ For the nineteen months he spent in Malaya he found himself ‘suddenly dumped into a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-religious society. I was surrounded by Hindus, Sikhs, Muslims, Chinese, and given the equivalent of a university education in how the world lived’. On his return to Middlesbrough he felt cast adrift from old friendships, and it was to join one of his few remaining buddies that he left for Bristol – where he ‘opened Plays and Players, which had just started publishing, and there was an advertisement for applications to the acting and stage management courses at the Bristol Old Vic School’. He was interviewed by Nat Brenner, who later told Clive that when he’d opened the door he had thought, ‘Good God, it’s a man!’ and accepted him straight away. ‘So much for vocation.’ Before the term began, he worked ‘knocking the brick lining out of a blast furnace and labouring for the bricklayers replacing it. After that . . . as a bread-slicer in a bakery’. He remembered ‘the short period I was in the works . . . as being the closest I ever felt to my father. We were in the same world for once’. His time at Bristol was spent largely in stage management both for the Bristol Old Vic and the university’s Drama Studio, though he also directed a few times – his first production being John Whiting’s one-off masterpiece Saint’s Day. Just before this a friend ‘said to me that he had just met a group who he thought would be the ideal company for me: “They all wear sandals and beards and have dirty feet.” This was odd because I didn’t have a beard and never owned a pair of sandals and my feet, I thought, were scrupulously clean. I wrote to this company, Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, asked for an interview to work in stage management.’ As he later summed up in Theatre Games, ‘in the manner of anyone who goes there to do any job other than acting, I became an actor’. In The Good Soldier Schweik he made his first appearance in the West End when the production transferred to the Duke of York’s in March 1956 – just six weeks 15

Clive Barker and His Legacy

before Look Back in Anger opened at the Royal Court, and six months before the visit of the Berliner Ensemble. Murray Melvin and Brian Murphy are best qualified to speak of the Workshop years that followed, but Joan Littlewood’s influence pervaded his later life – this despite his recollection after Joan’s death in 2002 that Shelagh Delaney, who cared for Joan after her partner Gerry Raffles’s death, ‘came to Brian Murphy and myself and asked: “However did you put up with this woman for so long?” The best we could come up with was: “Masochism.” ’ Working with her ‘was never comfortable and often deeply miserable. The reason we stayed was that the work was good. Even if we often didn’t understand how it came to be so good. The best there was.’ * Of the ‘two tribes’ into which, Clive said, life had thrown him, ‘the first was Theatre Workshop . . . The other tribe is the collection of practitioners and scholars who centre on Eugenio Barba and Odin Teatret. With them I feel at home.’ It was Eugenio Barba who fittingly described Clive as a ‘man of counterpoint’, in whose thinking ‘different melodic lines intertwine and collaborate without melting together, each developing its own difference’. Although, unlike the other contributors to this volume, I am not qualified to comment on the nature and importance of the ‘different melodic lines’ in Clive’s practical work in live theatre, my acquaintance with his later life, and the time when the connection with Odin came into play, will probably have been longest and most continuous – not least in persuading him to put his ideas into print. Starting with that article for Prompt. * As it happened it was Heinz Bernard’s piece – on directing Brecht – that we put into the first issue, reserving Clive on Centre 42 for the second, themed issue on popular theatre. Centre 42 was inspired by the resolution of the Trades Union Congress from which the organization took its name. It aimed to counter ‘the break-up of the old working-class communities, for good and for bad, in the rebuilding of housing estates and the increased centralization of the artistic work in London’. As festivals organizer for 42, Clive oversaw hugely successful but under-financed festivals in a number of regional centres. However, when the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm was gifted to the organization in 1962, Clive came to disagree with Arnold Wesker who, as 42 16

Clive Barker: A Biographical Memory

administrator, envisaged the Roundhouse as a fixed base from which work could be sent out, whereas Clive wanted to continue the decentralized policy, ‘developing the network of provincial contacts we had set up to the point where they could be independent and literally create their own cultural activities’. Despite their amicable disagreement which led to Clive’s departure, he insisted, ‘For me it was a very happy time.’ In the end there was no money to pursue either course, and the venue became instead a venue for ‘underground’ music and pop concerts, and for theatre events ranging from a visit from the Living Theatre to Oh! Calcutta! – which, whatever their importance in a wider theatrical context, were scarcely in the original spirit of the movement. For the fifth issue of Prompt, in 1964, Clive contributed, with Charles Marowitz and Roland Muldoon, to a feature called ‘New Theatres, New Ideas’. In a piece entitled ‘A Theatre for Social Reform’, he described his plans for a theatre in the East End for which he had been seeking funding. He went into some detail: Initially I would split the year into three parts: From September to the end of January, a full professional company would present a repertory of three or four plays. From February to May the theatre would be shared between amateur companies and visits from other companies when available. There would be recitals and concerts and film shows. The films would be selected for quality, and to demonstrate aspects of our own policy at work in other media and by other people. In June, July and August the theatre would be given over to informal concerts, jazz sessions, poetry readings, dances, and to summer educational sessions. These would be an attempt to make use of the school holidays to teach young people informally and excitingly about the theatre and the other arts. Acting classes and discussions would continue all the year round. There would be one room in the building, probably a coffee bar, where people could meet informally just to talk. A news sheet would be published giving . . . a chance for local writers to see their work in print. There would also be a project to record the oral culture of the area and the living and passing history of the society, using tape recorders and possibly film. 17

Clive Barker and His Legacy

Less schematically, this might have been a blueprint for many of the regional venues and arts centres which soon began to spring up. But Clive’s plans had fallen victim to the reorganization of the London boroughs in 1963, and after the edifice complex had taken over the Roundhouse Clive had returned to Workshop for the West End transfer of Oh What a Lovely War. At the time he and fellow warrior Brian Murphy were hatching a plan to write a history of Theatre Workshop, and I was recruited to impose a little editorial discipline on the project. Giles Gordon at Gollancz bought the idea, but Joan Littlewood sadly did not. However, she only issued a definitive veto after many hours had been spent talking it all through, and we had begun to interview the major figures – the most memorable outcome of which was a rambling but riveting interview with Joan’s former husband, the folk singer Ewan MacColl, of which the first instalment appeared in the original Theatre Quarterly (TQ ), the new journal which Roger Hudson, Cathy Itzin and I had persuaded Methuen to underwrite for a trial period of three years from 1971. * In the first issue, in collaboration with the then youthful Time Out, we published a ‘Guide to Underground Theatre’ – ‘underground’ being the term then in vogue for what became ‘alternative’ theatre, or simply the ‘fringe’, after the annual spree of unofficial offerings at the Edinburgh Festival. Most groups in that guide have long disappeared, leaving little trace, but some survived to leave their mark on the theatre scene. Among these were the People Show, the Freehold, Portable Theatre – which kick-started the careers of Howard Brenton, David Hare and Snoo Wilson – and Pip Simmons, about whom Clive wrote in TQ 35 (1979). But the group with which Clive became most closely involved was Interaction, ED Berman’s umbrella organization described in our ‘Guide’ as his ‘master plan for revitalising the community through the use of theatre’ – an aim of course also close to Clive’s heart. His work in alternative theatre is outside the province of this chapter, but I cannot resist noting his appearance, along with Stephen Moore and Prunella Scales, in Tom Stoppard’s surreal After Magritte, at one of Berman’s more visible enterprises, the Ambiance Theatre in Queensway. Nor is this the place to summarize the successes and failures of the decade of Theatre Quarterly’s existence, which came under our own auspices when the accountants ruled against Methuen continuing support. When first Roger and then Cathy departed, leaving me as sole editor, I asked Clive to 18

Clive Barker: A Biographical Memory

join me, by which time he had already made several important contributions – as important to his own interests and pursuits as for their intrinsic value. In the fourth issue, in 1971, came ‘The Chartists, Theatre, Reform, and Research’, an article seminal at a time when – as the organizers of a symposium in the previous year, to which Clive contributed, remarked – ‘It is still fairly respectable to know nothing about nineteenth-century theatre.’ His plea for a serious approach to popular theatre of the period was fully answered, not least by the appearance of the journal Nineteenth-Century Theatre Research; and to TQ 34 (1979) he contributed his own ‘The Audiences of the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton’, investigating the composition of frequenters of one East End theatre. Later, he was to lend his voice to the study of another neglected period in British theatre, when he co-edited with Maggie B. Gale British Theatre Between the Wars, 1918–1939 (Cambridge, 2001). * More important in respect of Clive’s own thinking at the time was ‘The Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama’ in TQ 16 (1974). The article began: ‘Seven years ago I moved from the professional theatre to work in Birmingham University’s Drama Department. I am now leaving there to work full-time again in the theatre.’ What he does not mention was that the move to Birmingham might not have been possible without the active encouragement – and maybe some string-pulling, in view of Clive’s lack of a formal academic qualification – of John Russell Brown, Head of Drama and Theatre Arts at Birmingham from 1964 to 1971, who was to remain a lifelong friend. In 1951 Brown had been one of the first Fellows of the Shakespeare Institute under the directorship of its founder, Allardyce Nicoll, an earlier advocate of collaboration between academic and live theatre. Such a collaboration was reflected in Brown’s own career: in 1971 he moved from Birmingham to become Professor of English at the recently established University of Sussex, then, around the time of Clive’s move back into professional theatre, Brown combined his university role with that of associate director and literary manager during Peter Hall’s tenure of the National Theatre. I don’t think that Brown’s departure from Birmingham influenced Clive’s own decision to leave. It is certainly not among the factors he outlines in ‘The Dilemma of the Professional’. Originally, he had hoped that his wide range of experience – spread between acting, stage management, directing and training – would prove an advantage: his ‘constant switching from one line to another ensured continuous employment’ in the theatre, ‘but worked against the normal practice . . . of raising one’s salary and fees’ in continuous 19

Clive Barker and His Legacy

and progressive stages. He hoped his varied skills would be advantageous in a university department; but he found that practice and research, so far from forming complementary aspects of a single discipline, were often in contention for resources and, sometimes, for students. In his first three years at Birmingham, ‘the major task outside teaching was overseeing and equipping the drama studio’, and ‘little integration of the study and practical work was attempted’. There was an insistence that the course was non-vocational, but he found it ‘a blind contradiction’ to say that ‘one is not training actors, but that one is in a position of understanding directly what is involved in acting. It requires almost the same amount of work.’ As to departmental productions, while he was ‘very much in favour of scholars putting ideas into practice, this too often led to an academic ‘trying to “test” advanced ideas in what should be a basic practical training situation. The demands of the two are irreconcilable.’ However, there was one other major task he undertook during the early years. This was: the planning that was to have been the basis of a research centre to study the relationship between the theatre and the community . . . in response to the UNESCO Seminar on Theatre and Community in 1967, of which I was a member. The plans I drew up were to include an information centre on all aspects of the European theatre in general, and the British theatre in particular, which would serve anyone working in the theatre, scholarship, or cultural administration . . . It would have acted as an advisory and research centre into cultural policies and administration. In the end we were left with a sheaf of letters from all organisations in the field giving their whole-hearted support and not a penny to set it up. It was useful to me, and the information and experience gained has been fed into a number of theatre and community arts projects and has enabled me to make a considerable contribution to the Working Party for a British Theatre Institute, which now gives a real hope of something on these lines coming about. I could not have done the basic work outside a university. If and when the British Theatre Institute is established there is still a lot more information and experience to be fed into the project. In the meantime, I know a lot more than I did when I first came to Birmingham. The ‘British Theatre Institute’ (BTI) refers to a pipe dream being puffed by Theatre Quarterly to create an equivalent to the British Film Institute for the 20

Clive Barker: A Biographical Memory

theatre. A working party of the theatrical great and good met regularly, hosted at the British Drama League under Martin Esslin’s chairmanship. Almost every influential theatre organization was represented, from Equity to the Society for Theatre Research, and these contacts no doubt helped our appeal, which for a while seemed to be on the verge of realization. Edward Heath’s Minister for the Arts, Sir David Eccles, even proposed that a BTI might be housed along with the British Theatre Museum in Somerset House, left vacant when the central Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages commuted to Kew. Our hopes were raised further when Harold Wilson, returning to power in 1974, chose as his new Arts Minister Hugh Jenkins, who had been a member of our working party. But little came of it all and, after Martin Esslin left as chairman, the BTI fell victim to the battling vested interests that we had been trying to keep sweet (mainly by keeping them apart). For Clive, it was at least a useful learning experience, notably when TQ went on to campaign, with greater success, for the re-creation of a British Centre of the International Theatre Institute (ITI), from which our membership had lapsed. Yet another committee was duly formed, under the benign chairmanship of Arnold Wesker, with Clive as vice-chairman, to work towards that end – its realization unfortunately coinciding with the demise of the original Theatre Quarterly, which was among the victims of the first round of Thatcherite Arts Council cuts, combined with the effects of that early monetarist mantra, the ‘strong pound’, which had a devastating effect upon our income from American subscriptions. * The theatre to which Clive had returned after leaving Birmingham was the Northcott in Exeter, which had opened in 1967, and was where in 1975 Clive became Associate Director after the appointment of his friend Geoffrey Reeves as Artistic Director. By the time Richard Digby Day took over in 1978, Clive had resumed his academic career as Senior Lecturer in Theatre Studies at the University of Warwick. In the previous year he had published the book for which he is now most widely remembered – Theatre Games. To this major work and the practices associated with it several other contributors to this volume will be giving the full attention it requires. Filling the gap that editing had left in my life, for three years I edited the bilingual journal of the ITI, Théâtre International. Through Nesta Jones I took up a part-time appointment at Goldsmiths College, and through one of TQ ’s stalwart advisory editors, John Harrop, had a stint as Visiting Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 21

Clive Barker and His Legacy

* After the demise of Theatre Quarterly and with Clive establishing his role at Warwick, our lives drifted apart for a while, though we found ourselves commiserating in the early eighties when we were both undergoing a marital break-up and divorce. Then there came a phone call from Clive, and an entirely unexpected resurrection. He had been talking with Sarah Stanton, drama editor at Cambridge University Press, who had invited him to restore TQ to life. Loyally, Clive had accepted, subject to my becoming co-editor. And so began New Theatre Quarterly. As a team I would be contributing the practical know-how of putting a journal together, while he would be the main progenitor of the ideas and contacts that would ensure high-quality content. Not that these compartments were ever really separate, but they underlay the permanence of what became an almost symbiotic partnership from the first issue of the journal in 1985 until Clive’s death twenty years later. That first issue included a contribution by a writer who had been an important mentor and friend to me, Jan Kott, and one by Eugenio Barba, from that other ‘tribe’ into which, along with Theatre Workshop, Clive felt his life had thrown him. In an editorial there was a suggestion from me that the journal no longer needed to assert the ‘importance of new work as such’, but its aims now lay ‘in persuading practitioners that their work was worthy of record’, and academics that ‘they should be looking for the vocabulary and experimenting with the means whereby such a record could be provided’. In the same editorial I also referred to an article James Arnott, first Professor of Drama at Glasgow University, had written for the final issue of the old TQ : ‘an outline history of theatre scholarship which was an instructive reminder of the youthfulness of the discipline with which we are concerned’. Sadly, Jim Arnott, a good personal friend and supporter of the magazine, had died in 1982, and in an obituary in this same issue Clive wrote that Jim had ‘embodied a broad-minded tolerance and generosity of time and energy based on commitment to the co-operative advance and well-being of the theatre and of scholarship’. This comment was in an article entitled ‘Old Friends’ – its other subject being Alan Schneider, an advisory editor of the old TQ , who had been instrumental in introducing Beckett to American audiences. Clive recalled meeting Schneider after an interval of three years, ‘at a time when I had gone back to stage managing in television. I tried to put on an air more sophisticated and world-weary than I knew how to carry off. “So you gave up, eh?” he said.’ But of course, he hadn’t. 22

CHAPTER 3 CLIVE BARKER: MY EINSTEIN Murray Melvin

1958. Theatre Royal Stratford East. Early in the year Theatre Workshop had presented Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey in which Joan had cast me as the young boy, Geoffrey. At the end of the run came the summer break but I was a student on a year-long grant, so I was kept on as maintenance dogsbody, painter and decorator. I was the first student on a grant that the Workshop had acquired, and I quickly found that the curriculum for a student at the Workshop was very different to your normal drama training establishment. September came and with it the arrival of a new company to start rehearsals for the next production, which was to be Brendan Behan’s The Hostage. So, my tea-making duties went from five members of cast in Honey to the sixteen that Joan loved to have around her. Among the new members, or new to me, was Clive Barker, who having gone through my Laban efforts earlier I thought unusual for a member of the Workshop: short, heavy, earthbound and direct, no hint of lightness except perhaps in his speech rhythms. In our daily movement classes or improvisations, it was always Clive who would stop and ask Joan ‘Why?’, ‘What was the purpose?’, and Joan very patiently, at the start, would stop and explain. That is until near opening night when tensions were brewing from all sides, but again Clive would stop and hold up proceedings for his ‘Why?’s and ‘What for?’s. It was after a couple of stops at a crucial moment that Joan shouted, ‘For Christ sake Clive, shut up and just do it.’ Wry smiles from the company and a slightly hurt look from Clive. It wasn’t until years later when Clive’s book Theatre Games was published that we all understood the reason for those interruptions. I was amused when I first read in the book a section from Chapter 2, ‘The Mind’. Clive writes: ‘Every director dreads the “intellectual” actor, the one who works it all out, who consciously thinks about what he is doing and directs his work accordingly.’1 Now I wonder where he got that from!

23

Clive Barker and His Legacy

There was a trick which Joan Littlewood pulled on many an occasion with a new ensemble. Meeting on stage first thing in the morning or returning to a rehearsal after a tea break, ‘Now’, she would say, ‘clear the stage and come back on with exactly the same conversations and movements.’ We would and it would always end in a shambles. Finished off with a throwaway line of triumph from Littlewood: ‘I keep telling you, you cannot repeat a scene every night, without a Stanislavsky fresh Lever.’ I remember Clive worriting that one for a very long time. Casting in Joan’s contemporary play productions was normally left until the last moment. The emphasis was always on the play rather than the individual. During the course of the rehearsal period we would all play most parts, male or female, in order to discover the internals of a character. Slowly, people were slotted into certain parts as rehearsals progressed. Clive was cast early in The Hostage as the Volunteer, his natural efforts being used to great effect. I was the last to be slotted in as Leslie, the Hostage.

Figure 2 Cast of The Hostage (Brendan Behan). Clive standing front and centre wearing glasses and a black cap. Photographer unknown. Photo from the Theatre Royal Stratford East Archive at The British Library, reproduced with permission from the theatre. 24

Clive Barker: My Einstein

In the second act of the play there is a speech by the Caretaker of the Lodging House, Pat, played by Howard Goorney. In answer to a story from Leslie ‘that he was being taken to Dublin because the Intelligence Men wanted to see him’, Howard’s reply was, ‘Intelligence! Holy Jesus. Wait till you meet ’em. (Looking at Clive.) This fellow here’s an Einstein compared to ’em’.2 It got a huge laugh when we came to the performances. We referred to Clive as Einstein for the rest of the rehearsal of the play, although the line was not strictly in the then script. Not that scripts ever constrained a Workshop player. We were governed mostly by Stanislavsky’s magic ‘what if ’. The title stuck. Years later whenever I saw him or he called, he was always Einstein, which had us both laughing. I cannot imagine any actor on reading Theatre Games, who has been through the Stanislavsky and Laban training, coming to Clive’s conclusion – ‘The actor as social scientist’ – and not feeling a tinge of pride and gratitude that there were those who did and do understand. Thank you, Clive. He went far too soon and is still sorely missed.

Notes 1. Barker, 21. 2. Behan, 90.

Bibliography Barker, C., Theatre Games, London: Methuen Drama, 2010. Behan, B., The Hostage, London: Methuen Drama, 2014.

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26

CHAPTER 4 CLIVE BARKER AND ALTERNATIVE THEATRE Susan Croft

I embarked on this chapter after several years in the role of Clive Barker Research Fellow at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance (RBC). This was a role that focused on both beginning to explore his archive and the larger project of building the collections there, gathering additional archives that complemented the material he had amassed and working to ‘activate the archive’ and make it accessible to inspire new generations. My earlier role as Curator of Contemporary Performance at the V&A Theatre Museum had confronted me with the role of the archivist as supposedly objective, applying dispassionate criteria to materials received. This led me to challenge the passive framing of collecting as a neutral activity. It already operated from numerous inherent assumptions about value and significance, while reflecting a field in which mainstream theatre would necessarily be over-represented, as it had the resources to document itself. As such, it would disproportionately attract scholarly research and attention that reflected the class, gender and racial concerns of the dominant culture. Less well-funded areas of performance were generally less well-represented in the archive or, where they did exist, less well-catalogued and harder to find. My personal agenda within the Museum, reflecting my cultural formation in the arts and politics of the 1980s, was to ensure that another theatre was reflected in the collections and made visible in events, publications and exhibitions:1 the alternative theatre movement that had arisen primarily from the late 1960s onwards. Moreover, in response to this absence of vital documentation, in 2006 I set up the project Unfinished Histories, with Jessica Higgs, specifically to record the oral history and preserve the archive of the movement and make it accessible. We included political, community and feminist theatre, Black, Asian and other minority ethnic work, lesbian and gay companies, street theatre, Disability arts, new writing, experimental work, performance art and theatre-in-education2 – in effect the whole eruption of different approaches, working and organizational methods, personnel and perspectives that had emerged to challenge mainstream 27

Clive Barker and His Legacy

theatre practice. In encountering Clive Barker’s archive, I recognized a fellow traveller, further up the road, who had not only accumulated the record of his own eclectic practice over the years, but actively assembled and documented the archive of numerous historically neglected areas of theatre, especially popular performance and activist political work. Clive Barker was a man for the alternative approach. When his archive was delivered to and installed at RBC, the College organized an event which was, in effect, a theatre game where host Chris Baldwin and the audience picked one at random from various covered boxes and Barker used its contents to improvise his reflections on the relevant topic – from Morecambe and Wise to People’s Theatre in Zambia. Greetings from those who could not attend included Simon Callow, who started his career with Inter-Action’s Homosexual Acts, the first gay theatre season in the UK; Eugenio Barba, founder of Odin Teatret and leading light of the Laboratory Theatre movement; George Eugeniou of Theatro Technis, a theatre project founded to serve the Greek Cypriot community in Camden, just across the road from where Unity, the workers’ theatre, had been; and Michael Kustow, critic and director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) from 1967 to 1970. These individuals represented a small spread of some of the broad areas of activism and experiment encompassed by the alternative theatre movement, between which Barker helped supply the connective tissue. Barker’s archive itself is organized like a game: once again there is a random principle operating – the boxes are each numbered and grouped around an internal theme, but they are not labelled, and the theme emerges after the fact from exploring the contents – or possibly from the lists of contents created by the original cataloguer. One theme might crop up across boxes 6, 47, 89, 123, 124 and 191. There is no specific relationship of proximity, taxonomy, chronology. Appropriate for the doyen of theatre games, here we have the theatre archive game, leaving the researcher to map their own connections and discover serendipities, an alternative order in defiance of mainstream archival practice. But one which underlines the breadth and interconnectivity of Barker’s interests. In this dis/order you will rarely find the alternative theatre movement labelled as such. It is in itself hard to codify and quantify, resistant to definition, a movement with questioning of convention and existing approaches at its heart, that really only became defined in the mid-1970s by Catherine Itzin, co-editor with Simon Trussler and Roger Hudson of Theatre Quarterly (TQ ), to which Clive Barker began contributing with its fourth issue in October 1971, and of which he would in spring 1978 become 28

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre

Associate Editor. The taxonomy is necessary in that the editors are seeking to create a definition broad enough to encompass the huge explosion of new non-mainstream work and enable companies to self-describe as alternative, in a series of ‘Guides’ that begin with issue 1 of TQ in Jan–Mar 1971, which included a ‘Guide to Underground Theatre’, compiled by Time Out magazine, listing thirty-two companies. Itzin went on to edit for TQ Publications the Alternative Theatre Handbook 1975–6, a 74-page pamphlet, subtitled ‘a descriptive guide to “theatre” companies who perform primarily in nontheatre places for non-theatre audiences’, followed by a series of alternative theatre directories, each grown to the size of 250 pages or more, with companies self-defining by choosing to include themselves. Itzin’s definition became central to Unfinished Histories along with a rough and necessarily somewhat artificial delineation in time of 1968–88. Barker might well have argued with our relatively narrow timeframe. Box 177 in his archive has been labelled ‘Alternative Theatre’, seemingly by the cataloguer. Its contents are not obvious from their listing but consist of multiple unfinished drafts of a book by Barker on British alternative theatre, datable in part by the technologies of their reproduction: typewritten with hand corrections and carbons, the early word processor era of dot matrix draft and daisy wheel printer, to the eventual sophistication of the Mac font in which two colleagues, Professor Susan Bassnett and Maggie Gale,3 gave feedback on the unfinished project to provide a candid assessment of just what might be done with it: was it publishable? could it be finished? Their response is just what might be guessed: while acknowledging the staggering amount of information Barker has to impart and its enormous interest, they talk about problems of balance, structure and audience, and they suggest there are inappropriate value judgements and personal prejudices that imbalance his account, suggesting he should give less space to Bill Martin, a personal friend but complete unknown, and more to Charles Marowitz, an internationally recognized figure. Barker’s planned book does struggle to define the boundaries of his subject. When does the alternative theatre movement begin? When does it end? How is it differently demarcated in Britain from internationally? However, a project rooted in investigating the alternative will necessarily valorize lesser-known figures: their very commitment to Itzin’s ‘non-theatre places for non-theatre audiences’ will mean that their work has gained less critical recognition and documentation.4 Not to do so reinscribes their marginalization and, as Barker no doubt recognized, recreates the situation facing future historians, like himself in relation to his research on the 29

Clive Barker and His Legacy

workers’ theatre movement of the 1930s. This was one of having to assemble the record and the archive from the ground up, in the absence of contemporary historiography that recorded its importance at the time, particularly with theatre that is politically focused on responding to the now, rather than ensuring its own longevity.5 A letter to Sarah Mahaffy at Macmillan Publishers in 1983 apologizes for his inability to complete the book project, which had clearly been underway for some years, in part due to illness, but also because of its huge breadth and his need to connect the history of the alternative theatre that for some began in 1966 or 19686 with the context of its emergence and the earlier experiences of ‘the Brook generation and my generation . . . the experiences of the war, the nascent welfare state, the extension of education, the new social mobility, the changing attitudes to sex’.7 The need to explain his terms and state exactly how the movement saw itself, or could be seen, as alternative becomes a determining factor. He notes the moment where the term ‘fringe’ lost currency in favour of ‘alternative’, connecting it to an interview with John McGrath of 7:84 in late 1975 where he objected to his work ‘being on the fringe of anything’.8 Equally hard is demarcating when it ended. Already in 1983 Barker identifies that ‘it is very difficult in 1983 to talk of an “Alternative Theatre”. By now there is only theatre and a constant inter-change of personnel has blurred the definitions of what is establishment theatre and what is not’.9 But in a later manuscript this phenomenon is located in the early 1990s. He emphasizes the differences from, rather than the similarities to, both the European and the American alternative theatre scenes, seeing the latter as more based on directors and theorists such as Richard Schechner, Richard Foreman, Robert Wilson, Charles Ludlam, Julian Beck and Judith Malina and breaking away from the traditional conventions of performance. Meanwhile for Barker the playwrights (Brenton, Hare et al.) dominated the British scene alongside its ‘almost obsessional concern with social reform’.10 Yet, as Bassnett writes in her critique of the planned book, ‘from the data you provide . . . I could construct a case to argue that the British alternative theatre scene was dominated by Americans in its early years’.11 Barker’s struggle to complete the book, then, was at least in part one of defining the boundaries of an entity or project, documenting an alternative theatre which, for him, implicitly needed to be seen historically as one of connection rather than rupture. This assertion of connection can be linked to both his own experience and research, such as the work on people’s theatre in nineteenth-century Britain that he drew on for the article ‘The Chartists, 30

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre

Theatre, Reform, and Research’12 in TQ ; or on the workers’ theatre of the 1930s, including Red Megaphones, out of which grew Theatre Workshop led by Joan Littlewood, of which he was a key member in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It connected also to the work of Charles Parker, the visionary radio producer whose radio ballads provided a vital record of working-class oral traditions and folk songs, with whom Barker worked in the early 1960s on programmes such as the play Strike! in 1965,13 and The Story of the Teeside Cyclists.14 Barker also worked on the initiative Centre 42, set up by Arnold Wesker in 1961, in response to Resolution 42 of the 1960 Trade Union Congress, declaring the importance of the arts to the trade union community. For this Barker travelled the country to Wellingborough, Leicester, Bristol, Birmingham and Nottingham, liaising with activists and volunteers on suitable spaces and participant groups to mount festivals locally, writing vivid reports of his findings, but encountering the frustration generated by the lack of adequate resources: rehearsal space, workshops, a permanent ensemble to catalyse the long-term change which the project aimed for. Its numerous interconnections meant that Barker may have struggled to complete the history of the alternative theatre movement, perhaps a necessarily unfinished project encompassing also, as it did for him, the future alternatives that might emerge, even though in 1991 he questioned its efficacy and whether it continued to exist: Alternative Theatre, which was at that time in its early years, had political significance across the spectrum of its performance styles. Simply by existing it posed critical alternatives to the dominant culture of the time, that of the Establishment to which it defined itself as alternative. At the start of the 1990s it would be difficult to make that argument and, disillusioned by what has happened in the intervening years, some writers who would have promulgated the earlier argument would probably now support an opposing view. The Alternative Theatre has lost direction and political significance.15 Despite these doubts of its continuing significance, he remained deeply engaged in numerous areas of the movement and ‘was on the board of the prison theatre group Geese and, more recently, even as he grew ill, gave unstinting support to the learning disability company Shysters’,16 touring with them, and running workshops, as well as supporting innovative companies, working in the community and museums, like Carran Waterfield’s Triangle Theatre.17 31

Clive Barker and His Legacy

Whatever its beginnings and arguable end, Barker’s influence on the growth of the movement from the late 1960s onwards is massive and undeniable. It was communicated in many forms, through: teaching and his influence on students and their future career paths; fellow professionals, both in his personal encounters and in an extensive correspondence with others in the movement, and his direct involvement in companies and arts organizations, either as board member or as mentor; his writing, editing and documentation of key companies and developments in the movement, especially in his position at TQ ; his international influence, directing and networking; and the publication of Theatre Games, which rapidly became a key text for numerous company-devising processes, workshops and actor training programmes, a subject dealt with elsewhere in this collection. When in 1974 Barker described his career before his appointment at Birmingham University, referring to his work with Parker, Littlewood and Wesker, it: ‘had developed along a number of lines. I had acted, directed and written scripts which were performed . . . taught at drama schools . . . and done all the multifarious back-stage technical jobs along the way. I had also written a number of articles and papers on various aspects of theatre and cultural policy’.18 Given the multifariousness of his work and highly peripatetic career before Birmingham, he expresses a sense of frustration and disillusionment with the university as a working context, while developing a critique of academia and the problems he encountered as a theatre professional working within that area. As a mover and shaker, connector of individuals, animator of spaces, he found himself instead confined by existing expectations, course regulations and structures, most particularly the lack of opportunity for students to develop adequate performance skills. In the article he wrote for TQ in 1974, ‘The Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama’, as part of a contribution to ‘the debate within university Drama Departments as to the viability of practical work’, he details his isolation within the department and his struggles to integrate practical actor training elements such as movement and voice within the course, the inability to make this operate with any continuity with academic course demands, and the tensions around the desire of students to direct in the students’ union productions, rather than concentrating their practical work within the more developmental context of the Drama Department. There he was trying to establish an ensemble, based around his ‘work on meetings, encounters and relationships’19 as part of an investigation of ‘the common experiences of the lives of men20 throughout history – in particular, the rites of passage from one stage of living to another’. The tensions between 32

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre

the demands and pressures of academia, including the pressure prematurely to publish a book for which he was not yet ready, led to his leaving in 1973 to join the Northcott Theatre, Exeter.21 Nonetheless, Barker had a powerful influence on a number of students through his politics and commitment to a socially engaged theatre. For Patrick Barlow and some of his student cohort he was ‘really a bit of an inspiration’.22 It was Barker who encouraged a group of students including Tim Curry, Barry Kyle, Geoff Hoyle and Judy Loe to pile into Barlow’s Mini in 1968 and head down the M1 to meet the inspirational black-bearded American ED Berman23 in a small shopfront opposite the Roundhouse, to hear his burgeoning plans for the growth of Inter-Action. Only Barlow and Hoyle stuck with it but they, along with fellow Birmingham graduate Jim Hiley, became key founder members of the organization, taking a step which was formative within their own work in alternative theatre. For Tony Coult, a student in the year below, Barker’s ‘transmission of ideas about Play, both for adults and young people, was influential and remains so’.24 For Coult they led the way to his discovery of Interplay, a closely related project, set up in Leeds by Berman’s collaborator Carry Gorney and some Leeds University students, and subsequently to the Perspectives company in Peterborough, creating theatre-in-education and work in the community. If Barker’s impact on male students was often inspirational, the experience of many female Birmingham students was problematic and the working environment he created was often experienced as unsafe, bordering on bullying.25 Annie Tyson found him highly judgemental and intimidating: ‘He really did think we were a bunch of middle-class wankers. He was pretty dismissive of all of us’.26 For Jane Wymark: ‘It was all about intense finding yourself, and somewhat confrontational criticism of whatever you did’, and ‘Clive didn’t keep that divide clear enough, so a lot of criticism felt very personal’.27 Victoria Wood was his student and Barker was very judgemental about her weight, resisting casting her until forced to by course requirements that she should play a main role.28 Barker by contrast felt that ‘his unthreatening personality . . . drew Victoria to him. “You’re dealing with someone who’s safe, who’s not going to put you down, who’s not going to hurt you or harm you or attack you, so you stand next to that person” ’,29 stating that this trust in him led her to allow him to read a play she had written: ‘ “The two of us were going to perform it, but never got round to it” ’.30 It is a picture further underlined by Jude Kelly, later Director of London’s Southbank Centre and of the WOW (Women of the World) festival. If Wood was belittled for her size, Kelly was mocked for her aspiration 33

Clive Barker and His Legacy

to be a director: ‘Clive told me that there had only been three women directors: Buzz Goodbody who’d killed herself, Joan Littlewood who’d retired and Joan Knight who was lesbian, and which would I like to be?’31 Most galling was his response to her initiative in leaving the movement classes to form her own group of women from the department: ‘I knew if I provoked you I’d bring out the best in you’,32 effectively claiming credit for her initiative. The context of woeful sexual politics, of which Barker in this era was part, reflected a male-dominated and often misogynist culture, which many women found equally prevalent in left-wing politics and political theatre groups elsewhere. ‘In that period of time . . . you can wield a very mighty rod based on name-dropping and the idea that you are politically more correct than other people . . . and it was a time where, in terms of women, you were allowed to treat them as you wanted to. It was definitely a male place and women had to find their way through all this’, says Kelly.33 For her the language did not yet exist for women to critique this situation. It began to emerge across the alternative theatre movement as women in theatre began to confront their experiences of marginalization and belittling, and apply the questions raised by the Women’s Liberation Movement in their own field, becoming part of the ferment of change that led to both the emergence of feminist voices in theatre and the arts more generally: directors like Kelly, writer/performers like Wood or Fidelis Morgan,34 teachers like Tyson. It was a period of challenge where dominant, usually male voices were confronted with the demands of group members for a voice in decisionmaking and the questioning of traditional structures. When Patrick Barlow eventually began to contemplate leaving the notional cooperative of InterAction, it was the result of seeing talented individuals emerging through the work and struggling with ED Berman’s artistic leadership: ‘things like the increase of ED wanting to dominate the company, that it was not a democratic company’ and notably ‘He was very unsettled by women challenging him about sexism’,35 an experience which was echoed across the movement. Interviews for Unfinished Histories consistently identify women practitioners breaking away from the gender politics of male-dominated theatre companies to voice their own experiences: in physical theatre Sadista Sisters started when Jude Alderson and Teresa d’Abreu broke from Steven Berkoff ’s London Theatre Company; in political theatre, Eileen Pollock, Eve Bland and Noreen Kershaw formed Bloomers out of their frustration with the lack of female roles in Belt and Braces; Hesitate and Demonstrate and That’s Not It made work that reacted to the male-dominated performance art world with a more ‘female’ aesthetic;36 while The Magdalena Project 34

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre

developed as a response of women within the theatre laboratories internationally, wishing to explore their own experience.37 At Interplay, for Tony Coult, the influence of second-wave feminism on the women of the company forced the men to take on feminist ideas and perspectives.38 Given this pressure for and realization of change that became irresistible across the sector, it remains notable that one of the recommendations that Bassnett and Gale make for improving Barker’s unfinished alternative theatre book is: ‘What is also badly needed is something on gender, probably an entire chapter.’39 The Inter-Action that Barlow, Hoyle and Hiley joined was an organization with which Barker already had his own existing close connection as a member of the board, helping oversee the organization’s numerous innovative creative initiatives and community-based projects. Early in the life of the project, using his status as lecturer at Birmingham, Barker wrote at length to Arts Council officer Denis Andrews, urging him to fund the project, which he described as ‘not only the most imaginative theatre project I have seen in recent years, but one of the most practical’.40 Inter-Action staged the first lunchtime theatre season, in conjunction with Theatrescope, in the Ambiance club basement at No. 1 Queensway. Barker participated as a performer in the premiere of Tom Stoppard’s After Magritte, which opened as part of Inter-Action’s Ambiance-in-Exile41 lunchtime theatre season in April 1970 at Guyanese actor Norman Beaton’s Green Banana Club in Frith Street, Soho, their interim home, directed by Geoffrey Reeves, whom Barker had introduced to ED Berman.42 The season then moved to the ICA, where they staged Britain’s first Black Theatre season, opening 31 July 1970, before setting up more permanently at the Almost Free Theatre in Rupert Street, W1. There they initiated the first Women’s Theatre season in 1974, leading to the formation of the Women’s Theatre Group, and later Monstrous Regiment, and in 1975 the first Gay Theatre season, Homosexual Acts, which saw the founding of Gay Sweatshop. The initial Inter-Action members slept on the desks in the shop front on Chalk Farm Road where, in response to Wesker’s sign outside the Roundhouse which he was still trying to transform into Centre 42, saying ‘We need £190,000 for A, B and C’, Berman aiming to transform his space had put up a notice in the Inter-Action workspace windows opposite: ‘We do not need £190,000 . . . yet’. The implication was that for Inter-Action the work would start using whatever resources were available, which it did: with the members working as a cooperative, sharing meals often made from donated food and, after Berman had negotiated an agreement with Camden Council, living in 35

Clive Barker and His Legacy

Figure 3 After Magritte (Tom Stoppard). Ambiance Theatre Club/Inter-Action, Clive playing Foot (right), with Stephen Moore, Prunella Scales and Josephine Tewson (1970). Photographer unknown. Reproduced by courtesy of Unfinished Histories. semi-derelict housing at peppercorn rent, while earning £7 a week – an arrangement which would regularly bring them into conflict with Equity.43 It was art as improvisation, part of an alternative counter-cultural lifestyle, and Barker, who though an ardent political activist had had his own frustrations working on the Centre 42 festivals and their protracted negotiations with local trade union representatives over access to space, clearly had sympathies and allegiances on both sides of the street. The Inter-Action powerhouse rapidly moved to larger premises in a nearby old factory and eventually in 1977 to the Talacre Centre, the first bespoke community arts centre to be built. Designed by Cedric Price, Joan Littlewood’s collaborator on the Fun Palaces project, it was the closest architectural realization of their vision of a space where participants could: ‘Choose what you want to do – or watch someone else doing it. Learn how to handle tools, paint, babies, machinery, or just listen to your favourite tune. Dance, talk or be lifted up to where you can see how other people make things work’.44 Inter-Action’s vision offered multiple arts projects such as the street and children’s theatre company Dogg’s Troupe, including Hoyle, Hiley, 36

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre

Barlow and others; OATS, the old age theatre society; a free school; the Fun Art Bus, a converted double-decker, complete with a tiny theatre upstairs, which stopped at regular bus stops to pick up its audience for a free show; a Community Media Van, touring housing estates and offering access to recording equipment; street-based actions like the Father Xmas Union’s Red-Leg Labour strike outside Selfridges, which led to a mass arrest of Father Christmases; the first City Farm in Britain; and later the Weekend Arts College (now WacArts).45 Underpinning all the initiatives was the Inter-Action Games Method. While there was a clear overlap with Barker’s interest in the potential of games to free the actor, the approach developed by Berman drew on children’s games as a means to free the creativity of individuals and groups, from psychiatrists to people with disabilities. A further key member of the early Inter-Action was Berman’s core collaborator, Israeli director Naftali Yavin: ‘ED was working on games as a way of confronting and analysing social problems. I was developing these ideas on theatrical lines while he was developing them on social lines.’46 Yavin’s experimental work was based on Inter-Action’s TOC (The Other Company) whose concern ‘with a theatre of actions rather than literary text . . . began to breathe life back into the theatre’, according to Barker,47 citing Yavin’s productions of Games After Liverpool, The Pit, and the plays of Peter Handke. All these in some way engaged with game-playing in productions exploring power relationships, physicalized through performer/audience dynamics, from James Saunders’s piece made of short segments designed to be performed in a non-specified order, to the devised piece The Pit. This was based round ‘a number of sort of master– slave type, psychoanalytical games, and the relationships [that] were played by the two men and two women inside’,48 while Handke’s Offending the Audience49 drew on a Brechtian approach to force the audience to question the nature of theatre. Barker and Berman seem to have met for the first time around 1967 when Berman was living in Notting Dale and developing plans for projects with young people, like Beowulf and the Dragon, staged on a houseboat on the Grand Union Canal. It was an early example of a Dramascape, a play-based project that started with a procession through the streets, gathering up children as it went. One of these led to the construction of a giant Gulliver under the Westway near Ladbroke Grove, while in Leeds they became a staple of the work of Interplay. Maggie Anwell, another student of Barker’s, had joined them from Birmingham University, and in 1971 Tony Coult, after a summer working with Inter-Action, followed her up to Leeds. There, their 37

Clive Barker and His Legacy

work drew on additional influences from locally based artists and practitioners, including Welfare State and Albert Hunt, to create what were hybrid pieces of street theatre/site-specific performance: ‘to tell a story, perhaps to create a problem that needs solving over the next two weeks, out of that comes the building of the play-site, usually a big structure, spinning off all kinds of arts and crafts and mini drama projects, based on the drama that’s done on the first day’s processional work and then it all comes together on the last day, which traditionally . . . usually involved a bonfire.’50 For Coult, Barker offered a ‘bridge between the “aggressive romanticism” (Long’s phrase) of Centre 42, based in folk art and the documentary history dramatic tradition, and the Play-centred social entrepreneurism of Berman’s InterAction, whose focus was largely on children and young people’;51 and Barker was a key ‘artistic stirrer’,52 along with Hunt, Berman, Jenny Harris, cofounder of Brighton Combination,53 and others in changing the terms of the debate, both in respect to theatre practice and to cultural policy: What was common ground between them was firstly a shared concern with the related ideas of Play and Game, generally expressed through arts and education projects, and secondly a relationship with the Arts Council of Great Britain as Panel members, advisers, and occasional antagonist-beneficiaries. This new set of ideas and practices involved a deliberate, or at least an accepted, blurring of the lines between the adult and the child, occasioned by the increased understanding of Play as an element of both artistic creation and social interaction. This new cultural conjunction affected the Arts Council of Great Britain’s policies towards the funding of young people’s theatre at an increasingly effective level. It is the idea of Play and Game that, through the agency of these and others, began to transform the Arts Council from within.54 This is a moment when: the boundaries become very porous as between Community Theatre, Experimental Theatre, Alternative Theatre, and Young People’s Theatre (themselves fluid coinages often generated by journalism that change according to historical context.) This is a function not just of the pragmatic struggles for funding these areas, but of the highly exploratory nature of a range of work in this period that sought both to re-locate an idea of Play in adult work, and to recognize significance and status in Play-full work for young people.55 38

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre

Alongside his direct involvement in theatre organizations and companies and his influence on new developments through arts policy and the impact of the students he trained, Barker was material from early on in networking and creating showings of experimental new work. The poster in the Clive Barker archive for a Guerrilla Theatre event at Birmingham University in June 1969 features a performance by the Brighton Combination, the arts lab founded in 1968 by Noel Greig, Ruth Marks and Jenny Harris; a show by Albert Hunt’s Bradford Art College Theatre Company; and a talk by Berman, Hiley and Barker himself about Inter-Action. He introduced international models of practice to Britain, bringing an Arts Council touring exhibition on Brecht and Piscator to the Birmingham campus in 1971; and Odin Teatret, the influential laboratory theatre led by Eugenio Barba, to Coventry in 1994 as The Odin Experience in a relationship with the Belgrade Theatre, further cemented by a collaborative project two years later,56 shortly after his retirement from University of Warwick, amongst many others. Carran Waterfield met Barker in 1992 through the newly formed Coventry Theatre Network, that also included Talking Birds, Theatre Absolute, Bare Essentials Youth Theatre and others, with all of whom he developed relationships. For Waterfield, he was both someone able to critique the work and a key broker of relationships, ‘managing to straddle all the different agendas that were at play,57 with the Arts Council, with other funders or with the Belgrade Theatre. He enabled her to see the work she was developing with Triangle within a historical lineage that drew on Odin, where she had done physical theatre workshops with Roberta Carreri, but also on her background in theatre-in-education and her excavations of her relationship to her home city and its history and her family stories. He also encouraged critical engagement with the work, ensuring New Theatre Quarterly (NTQ ) published on her practice and achievement.58 In the pre-Birmingham era in particular, there is similarly a sense of Barker racing about the country, knitting together new networks, sowing initiatives with suggestions of useful reading matter, awareness of forerunners, possible approaches, games to explore, figures to draw on, supporting funding applications, mentoring individuals, encouraging work, both informally through meetings, viewing work and talking in the pub afterwards and late into the night, and formally as a member of boards, informing artistic development. For Albert Hunt, author of Hopes for Great Happenings: Alternatives in Education and Theatre, ‘he [Clive Barker] just influenced my life totally’.59 For Hunt, Joan Littlewood was God,60 making Barker, who had worked with her, effectively a key disciple. In 1954 Hunt had 39

Clive Barker and His Legacy

just taken on running a youth drama group in Swaffham and was struggling to know where to start when Barker turned up and simply told him to ‘play games’. Drawing on his wife Dorothy’s ‘Girl Guides’ games book, Hunt rapidly found that all at once ‘the group worked . . . they were all talking about games they’d known as kids and for weeks we just played games . . . the opposite result from what I’d expected.’61 These led into their first piece of theatre, playing games from childhood, inventing new ones. Moving to Shrewsbury, Hunt went on to stage Ars Longa, Vita Brevis, a piece based on children’s games and by John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy, whom he had also met through Encore.62 The piece had been developed with local children in Kirkbymoorside63 before being staged in 1964 as part of the RSC’s Theatre of Cruelty season at LAMDA, initiated by Peter Brook, with whom Hunt would later work on US , along with Geoffrey Reeves. Arden became a second God for Hunt, who wrote one of the earliest studies of Arden’s work and was involved in the innovative festival that Arden and D’Arcy set up at Kirkbymoorside in 1963, a genuinely popular, if rather ‘dotty’,64 local festival based on ‘broadly libertarian anarchistic artistic views’.65 Barker is part of the connective tissue in many of these relationships, and of the creative ferment in exploring the theatrical possibilities both of games and improvisation and their potential as a language to open up new forms and enable the creation of genuinely popular radical community-based theatre. The Clive Barker of the 1950s and early 1960s is constantly on the move, building networks of people ‘interested in developing theatre in schools and organisations and youth clubs all around the country and was looking for people who were doing it’,66 sometimes bringing them together for festivals. Hunt would go on to establish himself at Bradford College of Art teaching Complementary Studies and bringing in an array of groundbreaking tutors to explore new educational approaches.67 With a curriculum that enabled experiment, a supportive management and the ability to structure studies so students could work intensively in two-week blocks, Hunt was able to create projects like the legendary 1967 restaging of the Russian revolution in the streets of Bradford with a cast of 300 students, an event described by Cathy Itzin as ‘the largest-scale piece of street theatre produced in Britain in the sixties or seventies – an event which encapsulated the imaginative possibilities of political theatre and which set a precedent for the following decade.’68 Hunt subsequently set up the Bradford Art College Theatre Group, with Chris Vine, which staged happenings and groundbreaking shows like The Destruction of Dresden or A Carnival for St. Valentine’s Eve, The Passion of Adolf Hitler, John Bull’s Cuban Missile Crisis 40

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre

that evolved from games, improvisations and experiments, leading towards a script. For Hunt ‘Clive Barker was a very neglected, hugely influential person.’69 Barker, like the Unfinished Histories project, would seem to have grappled with the issue of the probably inevitable amnesia around hugely influential figures who, because of their decision to work in non-mainstream, alternative practice, have remained critically neglected.70 He clearly wanted to recognize the work of Bill Martin, part of a post-war generation of drama teachers who saw the radical possibilities of drama teaching to change lives and society, whose work with Contemporary Theatre included acclaimed productions at Oval House, supported by its director Peter Oliver (another massively influential and under-documented figure). Martin established a touring youth theatre company out of the success of his drama work with boys from Chace secondary school in Enfield, aiming to ‘forge a company working within a style on a repertory of plays which had relevance to a wide social spectrum, outside the institutionalized theatre . . . The other was a series of drama activities involving people in the community using relevant material.’71 He exchanged extensive correspondence with Barker,72 who gave Martin and the company moral and practical support as well as backing his endless struggle to find financial provision for the work. Tellingly, central to the company working process were improvisational sessions, ‘free-for-alls which many found liberating and enjoyable . . . at the root of our work was a concept of play.’73 If Barker had intended to document overlooked work like that of Martin in the planned book, through his position as Associate Editor to the equally committed Simon Trussler on TQ and later on NTQ , and by his own contributions to it and other publications, he did give recognition to a number of key companies and initiatives. In an issue in 197874 his editorial emphasizes the need to build bridges between the academic world and the world of theatre practice, ensuring the former is informed by the ‘contextual knowledge of what is happening now’ and by documentation of the recent past such as the upsurge of late 1960s student theatre. When he joined TQ it was published in its own right with a cover price of 80p in 1971, rising to £2.50 by 1977 and then £3, making it accessible to theatre companies and practitioners, a practice enabling those bridges.75 This was also echoed in the discourse of the journal – one of practicality and accessibility as well as critical discussion, reflected in its publication of listings, guides and resources on a given playwright’s work, not least the first alternative theatre guides. His own articles include both pieces on popular theatre historically, such as the Britannia Theatre, and on 41

Clive Barker and His Legacy

the innovative Pip Simmons Theatre Group, explored in the context of the arts labs and other venues who commissioned them. Articles documenting alternative theatre commissioned during Barker’s initial involvement speak to his commitment to the field, including items on the community art of Medium Fair, by Baz Kershaw; Peter Holland on Brecht, Bond, Gaskill and political theatre; agit-prop in the 1930s in France; along with further international perspectives on refugee theatre in Tanzania, and theatre in India and in Peking. The first number with Barker’s involvement, issue 29, includes a piece on Rough Theatre,76 while the third one, issue 32, includes his book reviews of Bradby and McCormick’s People’s Theatre and of John Lane’s Arts Centres: Every Town Should Have One. In issue 33 he and Simon Trussler interview David Edgar, alongside reports on theatre in South Africa, a national playwriting conference, and TOOT, The Other Oxfordshire Theatre. The extensive correspondence in his archive with an array of individuals and companies around other possible TQ contributions; the breadth of his theatregoing, evidenced in his massive collection of programmes; and the extent of his engagement in representing the work through conference papers, reports, reviews, festival commentaries, investigations and unfinished articles, bear witness to a man deeply engaged with a theatre of change. Notes 1. This was reflected especially in my curating exhibitions such as Architects of Fantasy: Contemporary Puppetry, Animations and Automata (1999) and Let Paul Robeson Sing! (2001), in editing publications like Black and Asian Performance at the Theatre Museum: A User’s Guide (2003) and in diversifying the offer of the National Video Archive of Performance, in terms of its representation of gender, race, Dis/ability and experiment, as well as initiating the acquisition of archives such as those of Sphinx/Women’s Theatre Group, Lumiere and Son, Tricycle Theatre, Black Mime Theatre, Cheek by Jowl and Alfred Fagon, among others. 2. See www.unfinishedhistories.com. Starting from recording oral histories with a range of individuals active in the movement, the project emphasized the need to make this work visible through an extensive interpretative website, which has subsequently grown to include company pages documenting the output and practice of around seventy companies, offering in many cases the only detailed account of their work. This work is supplemented by talks, readings, exhibitions and publications, aimed at sharing the work with new audiences. The website is archived with the British Library’s UK Web Archive (https://www.bl.uk/ collection-guides/uk-web-archive) and the physical archive built by the project is at Bishopsgate Institute. 42

Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre 3. Anonymous, but since identified through email correspondence as Professor Susan Bassnett and Maggie Gale. 4. Similarly, one of the impulses behind Unfinished Histories was to broaden understanding of both the sheer enormity of the movement –listing 700+ companies founded between 1968 and 1988 – and its significance, and to document the work and thinking of the numerous groups and individuals who had been critically neglected. 5. Some of this material was published in Raphael Samuel, Ewan MacColl and Stuart Cosgrove, Theatres of the Left, 1880–1935: Workers’ Theatre Movements in Britain and America, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, some without Barker’s permission (see Chapter 11, ‘An evening with Clive Barker’). 6. Barker, who was already thirty-five in 1966, explores both dates, the former as the founding date of The People Show and CAST (Cartoon Archetypal Slogan Theatre), the latter because of the ‘feeling of common cause with those young people who fought the police in the streets of Paris, Rome and Berlin in 1968, who demonstrated against the Vietnam War in the US’, going on to cite protests against the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Chicago Democratic Convention; the perspective he quotes is that of the editorial in Gambit issue 26/27, 1975. 7. Letter to Sarah Mahaffy, 8 November 1983, RBC/CB Archive box 177, p1. 8. MS of Barker’s Alternative Theatre book, version 1, p1, dated from internal evidence late 1990/early 1991, RBC/CB Archive box 177. 9. RBC/CB Archive box 177. 10. Ibid. 11. Ibid. A popular narrative refers to ED Berman, Charles Marowitz and Jim Haynes as the three Americans who changed theatre in Britain and created the alternative theatre movement (see for example interview by Susan Croft with Sheila Allen, March 2008). Less recognized but also significant are African American Rufus Collins and American women like Nancy Meckler, Beth Porter, Nancy Diuguid and Cathy Itzin (see Croft, 2013, 10). 12. In TQ Vol 1 No. 4, October–December 1971. 13. It should have been broadcast by the BBC West Midlands Home Service. Parker acted as consultant on actuality sound for the production, which was originally to be staged as a piece of documentary theatre on the General Strike of 1926, but it was cancelled before production. Barker had scripted it from interviews. See catalogue at https://www.cpatrust.org.uk/ and copies of the script in RBC/ CB Archive box 74. 14. This programme by Clive Barker was broadcast on 28 August 1963. 15. Barker in Holderness, 1991, 18. 16. Obituary by Baz Kershaw, The Guardian, 19 April 2005. 17. A long-term member of the board, Barker was closely enmeshed in the company’s work, especially in the early 2000s when they created their popular 43

Clive Barker and His Legacy show Nina and Frederick, and helped them develop into a bigger company (interview by Susan Croft with Carran Waterfield on Zoom, 22 December 2020). 18. Barker, 1974–5, 55. 19. Barker, 1974–5, 61. 20. Sic. Barker, 1974–5, 61. For Jude Kelly it was clear that men meant men, not also women: ‘The thing I began to realize is that the things that women were dealing with, including low pay and all the rest of it, they just weren’t the concerns of . . . you know the plays that Clive wanted us to study and care about: they were all about men, and inasmuch as I think . . . over the years I’ve mentored lots of men, lots of male writers – the rites of passage of men, and the assumption that this is the rites of passage of humanness, and also the kind of love affair with people like Brendan Behan, the love affair with the dissolute, and proposing that as a kind of life style, Dylan Thomas, that women should support: it’s ludicrous, a ludicrous construct, where women, young women of 18, or as I was, 19, are somehow supposed to accept that world view and be part of its adoration.’ Kelly, 2020. 21. Then under the artistic directorship of Jane Howell. 22. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with Patrick Barlow, Unfinished Histories, 22 March 2012. See http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/interviews/ interviewees-a-e/patrick-barlow/. 23. ED Berman capitalizes his first name as it derives from his initials: he is Edward David Berman. 24. Coult, 2014, 9. 25. Interview by Susan Croft with Jude Kelly, 13 July 2020 on Zoom. 26. Interview by Susan Croft with Annie Tyson, 1 July 2020 on Zoom. 27. Quoted in Rees, 53. 28. Brandwood, 69. According to Jasper Rees: ‘Barker belonged to that generation of male directors who allowed their hands to wander and had a reputation for taking women into his office for private study after hours . . . Some years later when Victoria joined a keep-fit class she described the exercises as easy for anyone who has had their groin felt by C. Barker’, Letter from Wood to Robert Howie, 19 April 1978, quoted in Rees, 53. 29. Brandwood, 70. 30. Ibid. 31. Interview by Susan Croft with Jude Kelly, 13 July 2020 on Zoom. 32. Ibid. 33. Ibid. 34. Morgan, who was in Wood’s year at Birmingham, became an actress and went onto edit The Female Wits, the first anthology of Restoration women playwrights to emerge from the feminist rediscovery of women’s history as playwrights in Britain.

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Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre 35. Berman’s model worked on the basis of encouraging successful projects to break away and become independent or disseminating them for others to follow. Berman was insistent on maintaining artistic control over what plays were chosen while they remained part of Inter-Action. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with ED Berman, 4 December 2010, http://www. unfinishedhistories.com/interviews/interviewees-a-e/ed-berman/. 36. Oral History interviews by Susan Croft with: Eileen Pollock, June 2007; Jude Alderson, March 2007; Geraldine Pilgrim, 5 June 2013 and 1 August 2013; Natasha Morgan, 18 July 2007. See Unfinished Histories: www. unfinishedhistories.com. 37. This grew from the festival of women in theatre, Magdalena ’86, set up by Jill Greenhalgh and Cardiff Lab Theatre, along with Julia Varley from Odin Teatret, into an international network, hosting workshops, festivals and performance projects, and producing conferences and publications such as The Open Page. See Bassnett, 1989 and Fry, 2007. 38. Interview and Topic list, Oral History interview by Susan Croft with Tony Coult, Unfinished Histories, April 2009, http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/ interviews/interviewees-a-e/tony-coult/tony-coult-topics-list/. 39. See note 2, page 2 of unpublished report, RBC/CB Archive box 177. 40. Archive at V&A Theatre Collections ACGB 34/99. 41. When the proprietor of the Ambiance club Junior Telfer went out of business, Berman kept the name and took the lunchtime theatre project elsewhere as the Ambiance-in-Exile, possibly playing Oval House as well as the Green Banana and ICA. 42. Lee, 198. 43. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with ED Berman, Unfinished Histories, 13 February 2011. 44. Quoted from Littlewood and Price’s original blueprint on 100 Tiny Fun Palaces, 21 November 2020, https://funpalaces.co.uk/about-fun-palaces/where-does-theidea-come-from/. See Mathews for a full exploration of Littlewood and Price’s vision, including the design of the Talacre Centre. 45. For an outline of the company structure see http://www.unfinishedhistories. com/history/companies/inter-action/. For a project of its influence and magnitude Inter-Action remains woefully under-documented, but see also Berman in Curtis and Sanderson, 2004. There is documentation of many of these Inter-Action projects in Barker’s archive. 46. Kift, 8. 47. Barker, 1973, 34. 48. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with Hilary Westlake, Unfinished Histories, 7 April 2008, http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/interviews/ interviewees-r-z-3/hilary-westlake/.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy 49. Its first British performance was by TOC at the Almost Free Theatre in 1972. 50. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with Tony Coult, April 2009, http://www. unfinishedhistories.com/interviews/interviewees-a-e/tony-coult. 51. Coult, 2014, 38. In heading his chapter ‘Aggressive Romanticism: The Cultural Project of Centre 42’ (175–214), Long quotes Arnold Wesker (1970, 118) and his ‘more spectacular and utopian’ intentions for the project of changing ‘the whole cultural climate of this “dead behind the eyes” society’ (Wesker, 1960, 67). Coult’s thesis is based on a detailed study of the archives of the Arts Council of Great Britain at the V&A Theatre Collections, in relation to policy on young people and the arts. 52. Coult, 2014, 113. 53. Harris later ran The Combination at the Albany in Deptford, before playing a vital role in directing the NT’s Education department as its Head from 1990 to 2007. 54. Coult, 2014, 109. 55. Ibid., 12. 56. 26 May–15 June 1996. 57. Interview by Susan Croft with Carran Waterfield on Zoom, 22 December 2020. 58. See Trowsdale, 231–47. 59. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with Albert Hunt, Unfinished Histories, 24 July 2009, http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/interviews/interviewees-f-k/ albert-hunt/. 60. Ibid. 61. Ibid. 62. Encore Theatre Magazine, co-founded by radical American critic, director and playwright Charles Marowitz, was published between 1954 and 1965 and became the influential forum for discussion of the renaissance of English drama at the Royal Court, the Berliner Ensemble, Theatre Workshop and many more. 63. Its genesis is discussed in detail in Leach, 114–18. 64. The dottiness of the work connects to a strong vein in much British alternative performance, celebrating home-grown eccentricity, mined through the bizarre enactments of John Bull Puncture Repair Kit, the weird rituals of Natural Theatre or Forkbeard Fantasy, the street performances of Hesitate and Demonstrate or the pranks and ‘environ-mentals’ of The Phantom Captain, inter alia (see https://www.unfinishedhistories.com/history/companies/). 65. Arden, quoted in Itzin, 27. 66. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with Albert Hunt, Unfinished Histories, 24 July 2009, http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/interviews/interviewees-f-k/ albert-hunt/.

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Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre 67. John Fox, then a Librarian at the College, ran a project based on large-scale puppets and went on with Sue Gill and Boris Howarth to form Welfare State International: http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/history/companies/ welfare-state-international/. 68. Itzin, 65. 69. Oral History interview by Susan Croft with Albert Hunt, Unfinished Histories, 24 July 2009, http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/interviews/interviewees-f-k/ albert-hunt/. 70. Even Berman, easily the most cited influence across Unfinished Histories’ nearly one hundred interviews, has received minimal acknowledgement in recent theatre history and criticism, in part no doubt because he, though he disseminated numerous models of community arts practice through the Inter-Action InPrint arm, has thus far not published in depth on his Games Method. 71. William Martin, 1972, quoted on Unfinished Histories Contemporary Theatre web page – http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/contemporary-theatre/. Thanks to the excellent efforts of David Cleall, working with Sheila Martin, Contemporary Theatre and Bill Martin have gained some degree of recognition through the creation of these pages. http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/ history/individuals-2/bill-martin/. 72. RBC/CB Archive box 179. 73. Quoted on Unfinished Histories Contemporary Theatre page, http://www. unfinishedhistories.com/contemporary-theatre/ 74. Barker, 1978, 3. 75. By contrast NTQ is published by Cambridge University Press, clearly aimed at an academic market, with no cover price given, and is now largely inaccessible in its online versions to anyone outside the academy. 76. For information on Rough Theatre see http://www.unfinishedhistories.com/ history/companies/rough-theatre/.

Bibliography Barker, C., ‘A Theatre for Social Reform’, Prompt Magazine 5, 1964, 24–6 (part of a symposium with Charles Marowitz and Roland Muldoon). Barker, C., ‘Northern Manoeuvres’, Gambit, 23:6, 1973, 33–40. Barker, C., ‘The Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama’, Theatre Quarterly, 4:16, November 1974–January 1975, 55–68. Barker, C., ‘New Paths for Performance Research’, Theatre Quarterly, 8:30, Summer 1978, 3–7. Barker, C., ‘Alternative Theatre / Political Theatre’, in G. Holderness (ed.), The Politics of Theatre and Drama, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991, 18–43.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy Barlow, P., Unfinished Histories interview with Susan Croft, 22 March 2012. Barlow, P., interview with Susan Croft and Tony Coult, 5 June 2020 on Zoom. Bassnett, S., Magdalena: International Women’s Experimental Theatre, Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1989. Berman, ED, ‘ “It takes a lot of work to break through; being second is easy”: Inter- Action’, in H. Curtis and M. Sanderson (eds), The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of Social Innovation, London: Whiting and Birch, 2004. Berman, ED, Unfinished Histories interview with Susan Croft, 4 December 2010 and 13 February 2011. Brandwood, N., Victoria Wood: The Biography, London: Virgin Books, 2016 (originally published 2002). Coult, T., Unfinished Histories interview with Susan Croft, April 2009. Coult, T., ‘Constructive Work to Do’: The Challenge of the Young to the Arts Council of Great Britain 1945–1994 (PhD Department of Film, Theatre & Television, University of Reading, 2014). Coult, T., interview with Susan Croft, 13 May 2020 on Zoom. Croft, S., Re-Staging Revolutions: Alternative Theatre in Lambeth and Camden 1968–88, Unfinished Histories/Rose Bruford College, 2013. Curtis, H. and Sanderson, M. (eds), The Unsung Sixties: Memoirs of Social Innovation, London: Whiting and Birch, 2004. Fry, C., The Way of Magdalena, Holstebro: The Open Page Publications, 2007. Holderness, G (ed.), The Politics of Theatre and Drama, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1991. Hunt, A., Hopes for Great Happenings: Alternatives in Education and Theatre, London: Eyre Methuen, 1976. Itzin, C., Stages in the Revolution: Political Theatre in Britain Since 1968, London: Eyre Methuen, 1980. Kelly, Jude, interview with Susan Croft, 13 July 2020 on Zoom. Kift, R., ‘Through the Eye of a Camel: Two Interviews with Naftali Yavin’, Gambit, 23:6, 1973, 8–18. Leach, R., Partners of the Imagination: The Lives, Art and Struggle of John Arden and Margaretta D’Arcy, Beaworthy: Indigo Dreams Publishing, 2012. Lee, H., Tom Stoppard, London: Faber & Faber, 2020. Long, P., Only in the Common People: The Aesthetics of Class, Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. Martin, W., ‘Theatre as Social Education’, Theatre Quarterly, 2:8, October–December 1972. Mathews, S., From Agit-Prop to Free Space: The Architecture of Cedric Price, London: Black Dog Publishing, 2007. Morgan, F. (ed.), The Female Wits: Women Playwrights of the Restoration, London: Virago Press, 1981. Rees, J., Let’s Do It: The Authorised Biography of Victoria Wood, London: Trapeze, 2020. Trowsdale, J., ‘Identity – Even if it is a Fantasy’: The Work of Carran Waterfield’, New Theatre Quarterly, 13:51, August 1997.

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Clive Barker and Alternative Theatre Tyson, A., interview with Susan Croft, 1 July 2020 on Zoom. Waterfield, C., interview with Susan Croft, 22 December 2020 on Zoom. Wesker, A., ‘Trade Unions and the Arts’, New Left Review, 5, September–October 1960. Wesker, A., Fears of Fragmentation, London: Jonathan Cape, 1970. www. unfinishedhistories.com

Abbreviations ACGB 34 – Arts Council of Great Britain archive, V&A Theatre Collections RBC/CB – Clive Barker Archive at Rose Bruford College Special Collections TQ – Theatre Quarterly UH – Unfinished Histories

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CHAPTER 5 CLIVE BARKER AS TRIBAL SCRIBE: MEMORY, EMBODIED KNOWLEDGE AND THE POWER OF ANECDOTES Nadine Holdsworth

Introduction As someone who has researched and written about Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop for a little over twenty years, I am profoundly aware of the ramifications of Peggy Phelan’s famous assertion that the ontology of performance is disappearance. I was born in 1969 and never saw any original Theatre Workshop productions as they were performed and there are no visual recordings available either. Instead, in order to access what I can of Littlewood’s creative processes and how these translated into production, I have had to piece together what Rebecca Schneider refers to as the ‘performance remains’. This endeavour has found me sitting in several archives poring over items such as notebooks, programmes, design materials, letters and production photographs. These moments in the archive have been seductive and have lured me into feeling closer to the work I have been keen to think and write about. Yet, Schneider presents an important challenge when she writes: ‘If we consider performance as a process of disappearance, of an ephemerality read as vanishment (versus material remains), are we limiting ourselves to an understanding of performance predetermined by our cultural habituation to the logic of the archive?’1 Alternatively, Schneider calls on researchers to access different ways of knowing and modes of recuperating performance remains, particularly that which is ‘housed in a body’.2 As such, Schneider elevates the importance of memory, recollection and ways of transmitting these via such routes as oral history, which, according to Della Pollock, ‘translates subjectively remembered events into embodied memory acts, moving memory into reremembering’.3 For Daniela Salazar this kind of first-person testimony of creative process, performance or the reactions of an audience, facilitates access to that which cannot be recreated.4 Significantly, this approach offers something markedly different from that housed by archival logic. ‘In 51

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performance as memory, the pristine sameness of an “original”, so valued by the archive, is rendered impossible – or, if you will, mythic’.5 It is mythic because it is selective, idiosyncratic, partial and incomplete; it is reliant on who is doing the telling as well as the assumed listener or reader. In this sense, oral history might be best understood as a performance in itself. This brings into play not only what is told in terms of information, but also how it is told, where and for what reason. Certainly, the enactment of remembered stories is contextually specific – there is a difference between sharing an anecdote down the pub and committing it to published text. In this chapter I am concerned with the memories housed in the body of Clive Barker about his time working as a stage manager and actor with Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop. Whereas Littlewood refused to set down her method of working, her distinct ways of bringing a performance to fruition, a number of those who worked with her, including Clive, have made inroads into filling that gap, that void in the theatrical record. Clive has acknowledged that ‘most of what took place is in the memories of those of us who worked with her’ and my research and many others have been reliant on how that experience of creative process has been variously translated into embodied memory acts and written documents.6 By offering insights into his time with Littlewood and Theatre Workshop, Clive emphasized how his participation in this shadowy world was crucial in what he was able to tell. In this regard, I am interested in thinking through how Clive might be understood in relation to Jacky Bratton’s conception of the ‘tribal scribe’, ‘an historian who has been personally involved in the story he tells’.7 In Bratton’s formulation there is something important about gaining ‘a perspective that is usefully close to the ground’.8 Writing about the Victorian critic Clement Scott, she identifies how the scribal might be understood as both a method and a style: Setting out to record his own times, he gives us a personal annal much interrupted with excursions into favourite topics, and interspersed with letters and extracts from and about others, especially actors, that show his credentials as an historian by his possession of records and personal links with the people about whom he writes, who know him and are happy to help him in his history.9 Hence, the scribal approach produces the kind of historical knowledge that exists beyond the orthodoxy of formal archival practices because the information is embedded in a close affective relation to the events and practice being recounted. 52

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In particular, in what follows I explore the various ways that Clive’s highly personal embodied knowledge of what it meant to make theatre with Theatre Workshop was performed and communicated via conversations and writing that relied heavily on anecdote. In this endeavour I am indebted to Bratton, who has embraced anecdote as a rich tradition that substantiates and embellishes more linear or narrative forms of knowledge formation. She argues that ‘[t]he anecdote is not the same as “a story” because it claims to be true, about real people, it occupies the same functional space as fiction, in that it is intended to entertain, but its instructive dimension is more overt’.10 As such, Bratton illuminates the significance of information that exists beyond the merely factual and showcases how the different registers of theatrical memoir, storytelling and anecdote offer alternative modes of evidence that should be highly sought after by the historian, who is able to appreciate them in their own right and to enmesh these modes within a complex network of sources. As she observes, ‘such a record is a particular kind of primary source for subsequent histories’ because it is open, unguarded and reflective.11

Clive Barker and me Sifting through old documents in preparation for writing this, I came across a draft of a paper on Joan Littlewood and Theatre Workshop that Clive Barker sent me not long before he died. At the top of the first typed page is a handwritten note: ‘My last piece. Over to you.’ It’s an extraordinary gesture of baton-passing that acknowledges his work, his authorship, his last words on the topic, but also that there is more to say, different perspectives to mine. This hastily scribbled note serves as a marker of the generosity that had come to characterize my relationship with Clive. I was going to say that our connection began in 1995 when I sent an article about 7:84 England to New Theatre Quarterly, but that’s not strictly true. Oddly enough, Clive had interviewed me in the mid-1980s when I applied for a place to study theatre at the University of Warwick where he worked from 1976 to 1993. I remember the occasion very clearly, not least because whilst he indicated that I would be offered a place, he advised me to go somewhere else where I would have more opportunity to pursue practice. I took his advice, benefitting from his counsel then, as I was to do many times over the subsequent years. From 1995 until his death Clive became an informal mentor to me. We exchanged letters, met up for pub lunches, our conversations peppered with laughter and delightful diversions into his loves aside from theatre – his 53

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children, cricket, detective novels and pork pies. My last letter to Clive included a photo of my son who was born two months before Clive died in March 2005; he thanked me with a postcard that has an image of the Marx Brothers on it. I still have that postcard pinned up in my office. My relationship with Clive was rooted in shared personal interests, but it also pivoted around his professional expertise and connections. In the acknowledgements to my book Joan Littlewood’s Theatre I state my gratitude to Clive for doing ‘a great deal to ease my path as a researcher’.12 This easing took many forms. He gave great feedback on early pieces of writing when I was fresh out of my PhD. He pushed me to be a better writer, to dig deeper, be bolder, to always be mindful of the contemporary moment and relevance. Responding to that first 7:84 England piece, he wrote ‘[t]he world it presumes as its raison d’être has disappeared. And Blair is not Kinnock, which is a terrible thing to say, but is nevertheless true’.13 When I was trying to gain access to the Theatre Workshop archive carefully managed and guarded by Murray Melvin at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, Clive wrote a letter vouching for me, which opened that door. I had a nod of approval from a Theatre Workshop ‘insider’ and that was hugely important. However, perhaps most importantly, I benefitted enormously from our conversations when Clive shared insights, memories and anecdotes about his time working with Joan Littlewood and her company. Through his repertoire of anecdotes that captured indicative moments of working practice, attitudes and turns of phrase, I was invited closer into the orbit of that mid-twentiethcentury world and that was invaluable.

I was there and so were you: establishing the Theatre Workshop community Clive was upfront about what it meant for him personally to be part of building and being a participant in a theatrical community. In his piece ‘A Brief History of Clive Barker’ he writes that ‘[a]ll my life has been a search for a community . . . [t]his search has thrown me into two tribes. The first was Theatre Workshop’, and subsequently he insists that ‘the dream of theatre being a community, a family, dies hard’.14 In all his writings Clive is careful to establish himself as a Theatre Workshop insider, one of the ‘slags’, ‘who were called on to do everything and anything: bit parts, background, counterpoint, texture, improvisations – you name it, we did it’.15 Bratton writes about how the tribal scribe is adept at establishing themselves as part of a theatrical community and how this, in turn, is part and parcel of securing that very 54

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community. As she explains, ‘Thus the recounting of anecdotes, which are the building blocks of theatrical memoir and biography, may be understood not simply as the vehicle of more or less dubious or provable facts, but as a process of identity-formation that extends beyond individuals to the group or community to which they belong.’16 The actor recalling moments of rehearsal, an interaction with fellow professionals and what it means to perform in productions, is an active part of ‘making the shared culture of the community’.17 Clive’s work is peppered with references to his co-workers including Brian Murphy, Jean Newlove, Shirley Dynevor, Richard Harris and James Booth. So, whilst the information shared is through the lens that Clive constructs, it is always implied that it is simultaneously about the group. Also, putting anecdotes in the public domain offers up an invitation for other participants to reciprocate and tell their version of events. It is important to be clear that Clive’s contribution is not isolated and, indeed, is in dialogue with the work of others that helps to confirm and authenticate his recollections. In this regard it is useful to consider Della Pollock’s introduction to Kelly Oliver’s insistence ‘that history cannot be held privately. No one person “owns” a story. Any one story is embedded in layers of remembering and storying’.18 Clive’s words and writings are part of an intricate patchwork of contributions from many other Theatre Workshop participants who have also had a vested interest in telling their bit of the picture, their experience, encounter with and attachment to this same yet different history as it relies on their field of vision and the particular moment in which that vision was both enacted and remembered. ‘Performance – whether we are talking about the everyday act of telling a story or the staged reiteration of stories – is an especially charged, contingent, reflexive space of encountering the complex web of our respective histories.’19 Moreover, Clive was not precious about closely guarding his role as an interpreter of Littlewood’s creative process – far from it. In a letter to Littlewood written in the aftermath of the death of Gerry Raffles, when she was struggling to clarify what direction her life and work would take, Clive urges her to consider writing the history of Theatre Workshop’s contribution to the theatre landscape. At the time Clive had recently submitted his manuscript for Theatre Games (1977) which he acknowledges ‘owes an indescribable debt to you’, and in encouraging her to set down her ideas he insists, ‘I can’t think of any book that would be more valuable to have’, prompting him to offer his services as an amanuensis should she be tempted to pursue the idea.20 Indeed, Clive urged Littlewood on more than one 55

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occasion to transcribe her approach to theatre so as to meaningfully capture her method, her singular vision, in such a way that could be useful for future theatre-makers. Interestingly, whilst Littlewood never took up this invitation, Howard Goorney did, and The Theatre Workshop Story appeared in 1981. In his preface Goorney thanks Clive for his ‘wise counsel’ and an introduction to Eyre Methuen, which had published Theatre Games and in turn The Theatre Workshop Story.21 As this indicates, Clive appreciated that there were different perspectives and stories to tell from within the Theatre Workshop community, to enrich the historical record about the immense contribution made by this daring and highly influential company.

A culture and practice of rehearsal and performance: notes from the ground Clive’s work is particularly attuned to the nuances and complexities of the rehearsal room. Writing about another celebrated director, Peter Brook, he suggests that for all that his writings have been ‘inspiring for the reader’ they do not ‘always give a clear inkling as to how Brook works in rehearsal’; for this, he insists, ‘it is probably more valuable to refer to the testimony and anecdotes of his actors’.22 In his conversations and writings Clive did just that by detailing moments in rehearsal with Littlewood that he directly experienced as an actor, or events that he observed in the rehearsal room with others. His on-the-groundness is crucial in authenticating the veracity of his telling even though, as explored above, this relies on what he chooses to remember and recount as an indicative moment in the field of rehearsal. As he put it, ‘[w]hat anyone sees and how they interpret it depends on what attitudes they bring to the work and what resources they have to contextualise it’.23 Clive arrived at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1955 following his training as a stage manager at Bristol Old Vic. He’d written to Littlewood following the advice of the designer John Blezard who thought the company would be up his street. Once at the theatre he became one of many who joined to do one thing, in his case stage manage, and became an actor too. As he says, it was a company joke that if you wanted to join the Theatre Workshop you should get a job as a cleaner or in the bar and wait for Littlewood to put you on the stage, which is revealing about her antipathy towards professionally trained actors.24 He debuted as the stage manager for and took a small part as a messenger in Fuente Ovejuna by Lope de Vega and 56

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followed this up with a role as a military policeman in The Good Soldier Schweik. Having left Theatre Workshop to pursue other work, his return to play the Volunteer in The Hostage in 1958 provides a sobering lesson in the importance of chance encounters. Littlewood had phoned Brian Murphy to see if he was available, but because Clive was in the room when the call came in, he was also offered a part. This re-introduction to the company was followed by roles in other productions including Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be, The Dutch Courtesan and Oh What a Lovely War in subsequent years. Interestingly, these productions involved many old-school Theatre Workshop actors, including Howard Goorney and Avis Bunnage, but also a new generation that incorporated the likes of Yootha Joyce, Stephen Cato and Dudley Sutton. In fact, Clive is clear in situating himself as part of a key transitional moment in the company’s trajectory when its culture and practice began to shift considerably. The company had recently made the transfer from an itinerant touring company predominately located in the north of England to a static building base in London. This move had also prompted a controversial change in identity, from an ensemble that engaged in collective decision-making to a more recognizable management structure with Gerry Raffles at the helm determined to instil commercial imperatives. Littlewood maintained a tight grip on the artistic direction and aesthetic concerns of the company, but as Clive described it there was a delicate balance to be struck between the aesthetic and the commercial. Of particular interest to Clive was the fact that he joined Theatre Workshop just as the previous emphasis on training a close-knit ensemble was abating. Clive recalls of this pivotal moment that ‘[q]uite a few of the old touring company had left and been replaced by newcomers like myself, we were largely ignorant of the past and unacquainted with Joan’s way of working’.25 Indeed, through his anecdotes from the rehearsal room, he captures a moment of schism when the old-school Theatre Workshop modus operandi of rigorous training was placed under pressure by the dissolution of the ensemble. Clive learned a great deal from participating in Newlove’s Laban-based training sessions and was eventually appointed to lead some of the warm-up classes, although he recalls profound concerns about how little he knew and feeling out of his depth. He responded to this feeling of lack by introducing games from his childhood and he documents how ‘[p]eople began moving, so something was being achieved, however rudimentary’.26 From these origins Clive began developing a culture of practice rooted in the creative potential of games and exercises that became his forte as a theatre-maker, workshop leader and educator. 57

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Gay McAuley describes the process of making in the rehearsal room as ‘the time when the multiple material elements that will constitute a unique work of art are progressively brought together’, but this is a period in the creative process that is largely hidden from view.27 Hence, it is beneficial to theatre scholarship to have Clive’s anecdotes from the front line to shine a light on modes of working and the details of interactions that contributed to lauded productions. Revealing that rehearsals for The Hostage entailed the actors being regaled with stories and songs from a rumbustious Brendan Behan and that when he left this continued with recordings of him ‘holding court and developing a party atmosphere’ speaks volumes about the spirit with which Littlewood was keen to infuse this production.28 Equally, he is not only able to confirm that Littlewood brought background research and analysis to each text, but also to reflect on how this was utilized and what impact it had on the ground. What comes across with startling clarity is her commitment to play and exploration with her actors through games and improvisation to find the rhythm, tone and texture of a production. There is a sense of her inching forwards by probing the text, character and action or through exhausting repetition to find the most effective intonation for a single line. In Theatre Games he describes this as her slamming all the wrong doors in the actors’ faces until they were forced to come up with ‘a fresh, imaginative, and authentic response to the stimuli provided by the situation and by the other actors’.29 Invested in the multifaceted richness of the whole stage space and all the actors within it, Clive particularly stresses Littlewood’s exploration of counterpoint: Actors were made aware of what they brought on stage with them. Where the text made the given circumstances, the intention and the emotional mood quite clear, actors were asked to complement, or even contradict, this with other information. There was a constant use of other actors to offer, through their attitudes and movement, alternative views and interpretations of the main action. The stage became peopled with characters, each with a distinct, coherent and continuous life of their own, replete with values, hopes, ambitions, fears and judgements.30 In contrast to directors who work out their approach and blocking in advance of the actors coming together, Clive positions Littlewood collaboratively excavating all possibilities in rehearsal and changing her mind until the last possible moment. As he writes, ‘to have the nerve to leave things that late rests on the technical skill of the director to shape the 58

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production quickly – to nurse the production patiently as long as possible’.31 Moreover, whilst there is palpable respect for what Littlewood was able to achieve through this mode of working, there is also recognition that this process of deferral could be profoundly uncomfortable for actors less accustomed to this unusual approach. Through Clive we also learn that one of the consequences of this method of working was that the actor’s task of learning lines was largely dispensed with as they were acquired collectively during rehearsal, prompting the anecdote told to him by the actor Brian Murphy: ‘he was thrown into a panic when he left Theatre Workshop and went to work in repertory. He realised he would have to learn lines in isolation, which he had never done before’.32 Clive’s anecdotes also recalled and put into the public domain the numerous tactics Littlewood pursued to unsettle her actors, to destabilize any recourse to dreaded cosiness or falling back on prior successes. He quotes her saying, ‘If you go out to succeed you will never do it. You will always fail. If you go out to fail you might be creative’.33 Clive offers a fascinating insight into how he translated these words from Littlewood into an understanding of what they meant not only for an actor, but the audience too, writing: ‘To go out and have the confidence of failing means that the centre of gravity is lowered and the flow of energy is gathered and focused. The audience is drawn into the action and there is a relaxed flow of communication to and fro’.34 He recalls that there was no dress rehearsal for An Italian Straw Hat; instead the company played the show in reverse so that they ended ready to start the show, a break with convention that speaks volumes of Littlewood’s desire to keep things in play, to unsettle her actors so that they remained alert and attentive to the demands of the whole show. He offers snapshots of how she would pit actor against actor if she thought any complacency had crept into their interactions on stage. He recollects the impact of her infamous notes for actors that kept on coming during a run of a performance – a reminder that individual performances and productions are never fixed objects for regurgitation, but live entities that have to be kept on their toes. This was an approach crystallized in an anecdote about being sent a postcard from ‘the South of France telling me she couldn’t hear one of my lines in the performance before she left England’.35

Anecdote and myth-making Importantly, whilst Clive was always hugely respectful of Littlewood’s theatrical knowledge, skill and craft as a director, he presents no hagiography. 59

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Through Clive there is a glimpse of the flaws, the many flaws that stemmed from her character and resulted in a raft of poor behaviour. Specifically, Clive laments how Littlewood diminished the contributions made by others and her treatment of those who left the Theatre Workshop fold, which included her refusal to positively acknowledge their subsequent achievements. As well as piercing the potentially romantic bubble that can evolve around significant figures, in turn, this gives the reader a double insight. Yes, there is a recounting of the rehearsal processes staged by Littlewood, but also of how she made people feel, and that is an immensely valuable insight to share. For instance, whilst there is no doubting Clive’s appreciation of the quality of the work she produced, he admits that working with her ‘was never comfortable and often deeply miserable’.36 Through Clive’s documentation of their encounters and those he witnessed, the outsider gets a sense of her irascibility, her discomfort with ease, a disposition that urged her to provoke and court animosity. In an anecdote repeated in conversation as well as across several of his written pieces, Clive recalls a moment when he arrived for a rehearsal during the run-up to the staging of The Hostage. He happened to be in a particularly cheery mood but upon issuing a breezy ‘Morning, Joan’ was knocked back with a glare and a withering assessment that ‘You’re nothing but a fucking broomstick with fucking bananas for fucking fingers’.37 The response is ridiculous, humorous even with the benefit of distance, but Clive is clear that this and many other instances were about knocking people off their perch, about keeping them on their toes and wary – a state of heightened unease that Littlewood adamantly attributed to a more switched-on creative impulse. Clive’s anecdotes also reveal a keen and wicked sense of humour that comes across in the words that he attributes to Littlewood, but also in his willingness to recall them for the delight they bring, even when depicting him in a less than favourable light. My favourite of these entail Littlewood saying to Clive that he ‘could do three things, menace, catatonic collapse . . . and I’ve forgotten what the third was’.38 So, even anecdotes like these, which seemingly have nothing to reveal about theatre-making, are illuminating of a particular state of being that animated creative process. Moreover, as Bratton suggests, such anecdotes have a crucial role to play in the making of myth and legend. The social circulation and scrutiny of the minutiae of Littlewood’s language and behaviour enhances the mythical stature built up around her as a larger-than-life figure and a creative genius. In New Readings in Theatre History, Bratton quotes Jonathan Bate claiming that ‘the representative 60

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anecdote, like the horoscope, is precisely a form of which the purpose is to distil someone’s characteristic disposition, their “genius” ’.39 As such, the facts of what is being presented are not important; it is more about what is being selected, represented and highlighted, which builds orthodoxies. For example, Murray Melvin’s description of Littlewood as ‘our Galileo, she opened up new worlds for us’ joins Victor Spinetti’s insistence that ‘she was our university’, which is then augmented by Clive’s description of her as ‘my master’ and his recollection of Shirley Teague saying that working with Littlewood and Theatre Workshop means ‘we are marked by the sign forever, never to be allowed to escape its stigmata: no matter what else we may do in life’.40 The veracity of these comments is neither here nor there – the important dimension is the notion of being eternally defined and influenced by their interactions with one human being. As such, these comments, their repetition and distribution are part of the myth-making around the force and power of Littlewood’s impact. Following conversations with Clive and reading his work, one is left in no doubt that she was an incredibly difficult woman to be around. One anecdote recalls how the playwright Shelagh Delaney, having looked after Littlewood for three months after the death of Raffles, her long-term life partner, asked Clive and his fellow Theatre Workshop actor, Brian Murphy, ‘[h]owever did you put up with this woman for so long?’ to which they responded ‘masochism’.41 Yet the quality of the early work she produced and her larger-thanlifeness prompted immense loyalty from those brought within her orbit. Indeed, Clive was part of a group, alongside notable figures including Oscar Lewenstein and Harry Corbett, who rallied following Raffles’s death and were part of discussions about the future of Theatre Workshop and the Theatre Royal. During this time Clive wrote to Joan making several suggestions for ways forward, but importantly refused to pull any punches in urging her to revisit the ethos, culture and practice underpinning the early years of Theatre Workshop. He wrote: I think ‘popular’ has been confused with ‘populist’ in recent years and this is a mistake. The early basis on which TW worked, and to which most of us were attracted, did not make theatre an easy experience, but sought to take an approach to very difficult plays that would make them both positive socially and accessible. Recently content and discipline have been jettisoned and what set out as accessibility has almost reached the point of insulting the audience’s intelligence. In fact, I think it has been insulting.42 61

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For Clive, the larger-than-life quality of Littlewood’s engagement with life even infiltrated his response to her death. In his highly revealing piece ‘Closing Joan’s Book: Some Personal Footnotes’, he cannot countenance her death, the expulsion of this extraordinary force of nature; instead he imagines her as a ghostly spectre, ‘a frightening gargoyle’ watching his every move with a beady eye, ready to pounce or launch into song. His knowledge and intimate acquaintance prompt him to humorously question the manner of her death as uncharacteristically low-key. As he puts it, ‘I could imagine someone strangling her or pushing her under a bus, but to die quietly in her sleep was totally at odds with the nature of the woman’.43 The legend and myth-making are undeterred by death.

Tribal scribe as social barometer Throughout all forms of communication Clive was mindful of how his background and experience as a working-class Northerner defined his social relations and interactions with the world. In a typically self-deprecating turn, he begins ‘A Brief History of Clive Barker’ with ‘I was born in Middlesbrough in 1931, and it’s been uphill all the way since then’.44 He writes about how his time working at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in Middlesbrough at the age of sixteen gave him an insight into the devastating impacts of extreme poverty and how this defined his political affiliation. Moreover, he aligns himself with a post-war generation bitterly disappointed by the failure to see through the possibility of change and a more egalitarian society. This background and perspective led him to have a particularly acute appreciation of Littlewood’s own working-class background and how this translated into a political attitude and purpose riven through her creative outputs. For instance, in The Theatre Workshop Story Goorney quotes from oral history conducted with Clive when he praises how ‘She constantly celebrated the resources of the working people, their humour, their intelligence, their sharpness, their ability to cope with enormous problems and dilemmas in life: above all, their ability to survive. That’s political, but it arises out of Joan’s very deep love of humanity.’45 As such, as Bratton argues about the Victorian ‘tribal scribe’ Clement Scott, the stories he offers provide ‘a vision of the cultural space involved that is more densely cross-hatched, inter-related and populated’.46 His engagement with Theatre Workshop’s performance work is also about the conditions in 62

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which it was created, and it is also revealing about social attitudes not only around class, but gender and sexuality too. He offers glimpses into the ramifications of the material conditions of Theatre Workshop’s existence without any Arts Council funding to support their endeavours. With minimal personal and company resources when he arrived at the Theatre Royal in 1955, Clive slept in the theatre, as did others, and he provides a particularly revealing anecdote about the strict rationing of toilet paper distributed by the box office manager. This, I think, finds accord with Bratton’s suggestion that ‘[t]here is firstly a kind of detail, more or less minute, that is recorded entirely for its own sake, almost as if it were produced out of a hat with a triumphant air of conclusive satisfaction’.47 It is a well-known fact that Theatre Workshop lived a hand-to-mouth existence, but this nugget cements the lived experience of this in a particularly telling way. Pinpointing how Littlewood made him experiment with performing femininity on stage by dancing cancans and strutting on catwalks, Clive acknowledged how this made him, as a young man ‘desperately unsure of my masculinity’, feel profoundly uncomfortable, as he was the product of a time when what was deemed appropriate gendered behaviour was deeply ingrained.48 Being coerced to explore a spectrum of gendered responses in the public realm of performance highlighted his insecurities around his everyday performance of masculinity, in a society where homophobia was underscored by legal jurisdiction given the illegality of same-sex relationships at the time. In this regard, Clive repeats an anecdote several times about the actor Peter Smallwood, who played the lead in Littlewood’s production of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II . In his retelling he notes how whilst the performance he gave was astounding in its richness and subtlety, it took a remarkable toll on the actor as Littlewood pushed him to ‘confront his latent homosexuality, at a time when no great sympathy or tolerance could be expected from society at large’.49 In this wording it is possible to detect Clive’s unease with Littlewood’s ruthless exploitation of Smallwood’s sexuality as a means of eliciting a truthful and edgy performance that achieved great critical acclaim, but also an intense sadness that regressive and damaging societal attitudes propelled Smallwood into a destabilizing personal crisis that saw him retreat altogether from acting. Hence, this anecdote – drawn from the network of relations built up around the Theatre Workshop community, as Clive did not work with Theatre Workshop during this production – tells a huge amount about the times, as well as the sympathy of the teller for radical social change. 63

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Conclusion Clive’s impact has been felt across a complex matrix of actor training courses, university classes, adult education, teacher associations, professional practice and the international theatre workshop circuit. As Baz Kershaw stated in his obituary: No one else of his generation travelled the extraordinary distance from a conventional stage management course to become a world leader in actor training workshops, as well as an editor and scholar of distinction. He was a pioneer in bridging the uneasy divide between professional theatre and its serious study in British universities.50 In choosing to focus on Clive’s contribution to theatre studies as a ‘tribal scribe’ working with and through anecdote, I in no way want to undermine the huge contribution that Kershaw articulates. Instead, I hope to have made the case that Clive’s work and our understanding of the culture and practice of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop have uniquely benefitted from the stories he has been able to tell, that have enriched and illuminated through the particularities, the minutiae that anecdote facilitates and celebrates.

Notes 1. Schneider, 100. 2. Ibid., 101. 3. Pollock, 2. 4. Salazar, 25. 5. Schneider, 102. 6. Barker, 2003, 106. 7. Bratton, 2012, 5. 8. Ibid., 3. 9. Ibid., 5. 10. Bratton, 2003, 103. 11. Bratton, 2012, 5. 12. Holdsworth, x. 13. Letter from Clive Barker to the author, 10 October 1995. 14. Barker, 2007, 295, 298. 64

Clive Barker: Tribal Scribe 15. Barker, 2003, 107. 16. Bratton, 2003, 102. 17. Ibid., 106. 18. Pollock, 5. 19. Ibid., 1. 20. Letter from Clive Barker to Joan Littlewood, 20 July 1976, copy in possession of the author. 21. Goorney, xii. 22. Barker, in Hodge, 113. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., 121. 25. Barker, 2003, 99. 26. Ibid. 27. McAuley, 5. 28. Barker, in Hodge, 118. 29. Barker, 1977, 2. 30. Barker, in Hodge, 123. 31. Barker, 2003, 100. 32. Barker, in Hodge, 126 (footnote 20). 33. Barker, 2003, 102. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid., 103. 36. Ibid., 100. 37. Ibid., 102. 38. Barker, 2007, 299. 39. Bratton, 2003, 103. 40. Murray Melvin quoted in Arditti; Victor Spinetti speaking on Joan Littlewood: Great Lives, BBC Radio 4, 2 January 2007; and Barker, 2003, 107. 41. Barker, 2003, 100. 42. Letter from Clive Barker to Joan Littlewood, 20 July 1976. 43. Barker, 2003, 99. 44. Barker, 2007, 295. 45. Goorney, 165. 46. Bratton, 2012, 8. 47. Bratton, 2003, 25. 48. Barker, 2003, 101.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy 49. Barker, in Hodge, 121. 50. Kershaw, 2005, online.

Bibliography Arditti, M., ‘Joan Littlewood: Making a Scene’, Independent Magazine, 26 March 1994. Barker, C., Theatre Games, London: Methuen, 1977. Barker, C., ‘Joan Littlewood’, in A. Hodge (ed.), Twentieth Century Actor Training, London: Routledge, 2000, 113–28. Barker, C., ‘Closing Joan’s Book: Some Personal Footnotes’, New Theatre Quarterly, 19:2, May 2003, 99–107. Barker, C., ‘A Brief History of Clive Barker’, New Theatre Quarterly, 23:4, November 2007, 295–303. Bratton, J., New Readings in Theatre History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Bratton, J., ‘Clement Scott, the Victorian Tribal Scribe’, Nineteenth Century Theatre & Film, 36:1, 2012, 3–10. Goorney, H., The Theatre Workshop Story, London: Eyre Methuen, 1981. Hodge, A. (ed.), Twentieth Century Actor Training, London: Routledge, 2000, 113. Holdsworth, N., Joan Littlewood’s Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Kershaw, B., ‘Innovative spirit at the heart of theatre studies’, The Guardian, 19. April 2005, available at https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/apr/19/ guardianobituaries.artsobituaries. McAuley, G, Not Magic but Work: An Ethnographic Account of a Rehearsal Process, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012. Pollock, D. (ed.), Remembering: Oral History Performance, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Salazar, D., ‘Performance Arts and Their Memories’, in T. Sant (ed.), Documenting Performance: The Context and Processes of Digital Curation and Archiving, London: Bloomsbury, 2017, 19–28. Sant, T. (ed.), Documenting Performance: The Context and Processes of Digital Curation and Archiving, London: Bloomsbury, 2017. Schneider, R., ‘Performance Remains’, Performance Research, 6:2, 2001.

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CHAPTER 6 ‘A NEW TEAM’: CLIVE BARKER AND SHELAGH DELANEY’S THE LION IN LOVE Aleks Sierz

In 1960, at the age of twenty-nine, Clive Barker directed his first major play. It was Shelagh Delaney’s follow-up to her much-praised debut, A Taste of Honey, and it was called The Lion in Love. After opening on 5 September for a two-week run at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, the play toured briefly and was finally staged at the Royal Court for a month from 29 December. The Court’s programme gave a short biography of the director: A Yorkshireman from Middlesborough [sic], he apprenticed himself to the theatre in 1945, training as a stage manager at the Bristol Old Vic School. Joined Theatre Workshop as stage manager and also played in The Good Soldier Schweik. After a year as stage manager at the Arts Theatre, went to Carlisle as stage director, designer and actor. Stage managed for television’s ‘Cool for Cats’ then rejoined Theatre Workshop to appear in ‘The Hostage.’1 With its note of mild irony, this sounds like Barker’s youthful voice.

Littlewood and Delaney It was Barker’s work with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop company at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, where he was an assistant director to her for two years as well as an actor, that brought him into contact with Delaney. Her award-winning A Taste of Honey had been a big hit in May and June 1958 and was to transfer to London’s West End in February 1959. Delighted by her success, Delaney wrote a second play for Littlewood. She was still nineteen. Meanwhile, in early October 1958, Barker was rehearsing his role in Brendan Behan’s The Hostage, a play beset with problems: on ‘the Saturday

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before we were due to open, we still had no Act Three’, remembered Littlewood in her autobiography, Joan’s Book.2 As she and Gerry Raffles, her theatre manager and life partner, struggled to get Behan to complete his play, ‘a package’ containing The Lion in Love arrived from Delaney; Littlewood read it ‘with growing disappointment. It had more characters, less appeal and even less shape than Honey. She had learned nothing from the company’s adaptation of her first work.’3 She wrote to Delaney advising her to ‘read a good play, an Ibsen for example, then analyse it’ – ‘play-writing is a craft, not just inspiration’.4 Delaney’s response was to say, ‘If you aren’t interested enough in my play to sort out the good from the bad, and generally put me right where I’ve gone wrong, then I may as well be working on it with people who think that there is enough stuff there to be doing something with.’5 Littlewood decided that the young writer ‘would have to cool her heels for a bit’.6 This cooling-off period lasted for more than a year. In early 1960 Delaney wrote once more to Littlewood, complaining that her previous letters had been ‘ignored’, saying that Raffles’s attitude to her during a phone conversation was ‘arrogant, pompous, witless and ham-fisted’, and that she wanted to know whether they would be staging her new play; if Littlewood was not interested, she would work ‘with the people who think there is enough stuff there to be doing something with’.7 On 25 February, Littlewood wrote back, making some general points about her method of play-making: ‘Whether it was Aristophanes, Molière, Shakespeare . . . or Chekhov or Strindberg or any other dramatist worth their salt, only half their work can be done alone, the rest must be done actively in co-operation with the group of artists who are to bring that play to physical life.’8 She regretted Delaney’s ‘sense of grievance and self-pity’, and called her new work a ‘good deal of raw material’ which ‘may or may not produce a good play’.9 Although she doesn’t talk about Lion in Love specifically, she does say that ‘you must know that to work on somebody’s play as I did on “Honey” or “Hostage”, you must love the authors very much. You must love and understand their work more than you love yourself. It is a tremendously hard task to “form” a play; without feeling very near to the author you cannot do it.’10 Evidently, Littlewood no longer felt ‘very near’ to Delaney.

The Lion in Love Delaney’s new play was both similar to and different from her debut. Clearly, as critic John Russell Taylor said, ‘Its scope is much wider than that of the 68

‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love

earlier play.’11 Set in an unnamed northern town, which could easily be Delaney’s native Salford, the play is significantly more ambitious, featuring a much larger cast. It concerns an unhappy married couple, Frank and Kit, who stay together despite their mutual antagonism, and despite Kit’s compulsive drinking and Frank’s unfaithfulness. By the end of the three-act play, they reach a crisis: Frank, an impoverished street salesman, has to decide whether to leave Kit in order to be with Nora, who has a market stall. Things are complicated because Frank and Kit have two children: Banner, an apparently successful ex-boxer newly returned from his travels, and Peg, a feisty teenager. Like their parents, they also have to make a decision: in the end, Banner decides to leave again, this time for Australia, while Peg decides to marry Loll, an ebullient Glaswegian dress-designer whom she has just met. Three more characters make a significant appearance: Jesse, Kit’s father and the children’s grandfather; Nell, a casual sex worker; and Andy, a friend of the family who is an unemployed circus performer and part-time pimp of Nell. Andy and Nell plan to go into the entertainment business together, but, typically, this idea falls through. Because some of the action takes place in the street, there are also speaking parts for several local people. The main theme, indicated by the inclusion of the Aesop fable called The Lion in Love (number CIX) in both the programme and play text, is unsuitable marriage. In the fable, the lion falls in love with a forester’s daughter and allows her father to remove his teeth and claws as a condition of marriage; after he does this, the forester kills him. The moral is that ‘Nothing can be more fatal to peace than the ill-assorted marriages into which rash love may lead.’12 This applies not only to Frank, the play’s lion, but also to Peg and Loll, and maybe even to Andy and Nell. Added to this, Delaney wrote a short paragraph in which she emphasized the importance of location. It begins ‘Most of us know what we want but how many of us recognize it when we get it?’ and then describes the ‘restless city alive and dying in the same breath’ of her play, a place that is ‘like a terrible drug – you really want to get away from it and give it up but you can’t. So you stay.’13 This also has a generational aspect, as Delaney knew from her own experience. As H. Gustav Klaus puts it, ‘The younger people quit the milieu and seek their fortunes elsewhere, whereas those who have reached “the chaos of middle age” remain ineluctably stuck.’14 As well as being naturalistic, the play has some quietly dreamlike moments, reminders of the nursery rhymes of A Taste of Honey, such as the improvised adult fairy story that Peg tells at the end of Act Two (84–5) and Jesse’s song ‘Winter’s coming in, my lass’ in Act Three (104). 69

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A New Team With her one-time mentor, Littlewood, uninterested in her play, Delaney had to find another director and another producer. She used her connections with Theatre Workshop, where her friend, Una Collins, an actor, costume and set designer who had contributed to A Taste of Honey and Luigi Pirandello’s Man, Beast and Virtue (Theatre Royal Stratford East, 1958) had also worked. In the different programmes of the play’s regional tour, Barker and Collins are featured under the heading: ‘A New Team’. The programme note reads: ‘The career paths of Shelagh Delaney, director Clive Barker and designer Una Collins, met at Theatre Workshop. Here they found and developed ideas they hold in common. The Lion in Love gives them the opportunity to put these ideas into practice as the first team to emerge as an independent creative force from the Theatre Workshop background.’15 This professional friendship group gave Barker his chance of directing a highprofile show. But the ‘New Team’ still needed a producer and a theatre. The former came in the shape of Wolf Mankowitz, who had had his play Make Me an Offer successfully staged at Stratford East and the West End at the end of 1959. Born in the East End of London, Mankowitz was the writer, with Julian More, of the book of the satirical musical Expresso Bongo in 1958. A film version, starring Cliff Richard, was the next step soon after, and Mankowitz, together with his partner Oscar Lewenstein, a producer who was closely connected with the Royal Court, the new writing rival to Littlewood’s theatre, had taken A Taste of Honey into the West End.16 These successes gave Mankowitz the confidence to raise money for The Lion in Love, his first venture as an independent producer. Having secured the rights of the play and Delaney’s next one, Mankowitz gave Barker a contract that offered a fee of £100 plus royalties, with a guarantee of at least £200, stipulating that Barker had to ‘visit the play at least once in every 16 performances’.17 The contract mentions the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry as a possible venue. During the summer of 1960 the Belgrade was in trouble: the venue’s founding artistic director, since 1957, was Bryan Bailey, who had championed Arnold Wesker’s work, including his trilogy, the first of which, Chicken Soup with Barley, premiered there in 1958. But, in March 1960, while the final play in the trilogy, I’m Talking about Jerusalem, was in rehearsal at the Belgrade, Bailey had to drive down to Theatre Royal Stratford East for his production of John Wiles’s Never Had It So Good, co-directed with Richard Martin. On his way, he was killed in a motorway accident. He was just thirty-eight. 70

‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love

Although Bailey was soon succeeded by Anthony Richardson, the venue was still in a state of shock. Nevertheless, Delaney’s play was scheduled for a short run in September. For Barker, these kinds of cooperative relationships between broadly leftleaning individuals and their theatres offered him a chance to advance his career. But this left-wing nexus, a friendship group based on shared political and theatrical ideals, was not without its problems. Mankowitz was suspected by the security services of being a Communist agent because his wife Ann was a Communist Party member and the couple had voiced Marxist ideas, although he had opposed the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.18 And Theatre Workshop was starved of state subsidy precisely because of Littlewood’s left-wing political views, a reminder of the deep prejudices of the Cold War era.

Auditions and rehearsals When the Belgrade’s Richardson accepted the play, the summer of 1960 became busy for the ‘New Team’. Auditions for Lion in Love began in July, with Barker, Mankowitz and Delaney seeing young actors such as Terence Stamp, Sean Connery and ‘Oliver Read [sic]’.19 On 29 July it was announced that the play would be staged first at the Belgrade Theatre for two weeks and then go on a short regional tour to Liverpool and Manchester. The Salford City Reporter heard that it was ‘darkly hinted that Miss L[ittlewood] thought it “too bourgeois” ’ to produce the play.20 In Coventry, local newspapers also expressed an interest. Vanda Godsell was named as the star, playing the key role of Kit. As the Coventry Evening Telegraph reported, ‘There is a taste of Theatre Workshop about the production’, because of the involvement of Barker, Collins and actors Howard Goorney and Diana Coupland. Coupland was of particular interest locally because she had made her debut as a singer in Ferdinand the Matador at the Belgrade in 1958, and her husband, composer Monty Norman, created the music for The Lion in Love.21 Norman, of course, was an East Ender and the composer of Expresso Bongo, a project which had also involved Mankowitz. The new production also caused a national stir. A Daily Mail newspaper report from the summer of 1960, headlined ‘The Sagan of Salford . . . Still Waiting for a Real Taste of Money’, featured an interview with Delaney when she was attending rehearsals, which began on 8 August, at the Bloomsbury YMCA in London. She is described as wearing ‘long sloppy jerseys which 71

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Figure 4 Flyer for the regional tour of The Lion in Love, Hippodrome Theatre, Birmingham (1960). Editor’s collection

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‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love

make her look taller than her lanky 5ft 11¾ in’ and the article mentions in passing that she sometimes stays ‘at the home of Clive Barker (he is producing [directing] the play) and his wife [Josephine]’ at 19A Oakley Square, off Camden Street, north London – she says, ‘I don’t fancy living on my own.’22 In late August, Mankowitz saw a run-through of the play and wrote to Barker and Delaney recommending significant changes to Act Two. ‘I always felt that there were passages of irresolution in the writing.’23 He suggested giving Kit a bigger role. It was a good point, but Barker and Delaney ignored this advice.

Barker directs What was Barker’s approach to the play? Although no records exist of his rehearsal process, it is surely likely that he brought his experiences of Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop to this new show. Looking back, many years later, he talked to Theatre Workshop colleague Goorney about the importance of Littlewood’s working-class background: ‘She constantly celebrated the resources of the working people, their humour, their intelligence, their sharpness, their ability to cope with enormous problems and dilemmas in life.’24 Something of the same empathy must have influenced Barker’s work on The Lion in Love. He saw Littlewood’s production ‘style’ as not forming ‘pretty pictures on the stage’, but rather as creating ‘a live dialogue’, ‘how the actor communicated with the audience’.25 This might involve elements of music hall and also ‘moments of intense realism’, but although she ‘used to stir up trouble between actors’, keeping everybody insecure and dependent on her, there is no evidence that he imitated this style of directorial control.26 Still, the ‘quality she put on stage was of living life to the full’, and this comment could also apply to Delaney’s second play.27 Having originally been ‘confused’ by Littlewood’s technique of extensive improvisation, Barker probably now embraced it.28 In his seminal book on theatre games, he gives some insight not only into those early years of working at Theatre Workshop, but also into his general approach to creating a show. For example, he states, ‘One cannot teach “acting”. One can only create situations in which the actor can learn and develop.’29 While working on The Hostage, he was given the job of leading a session devoted to movement work and discovered that he was too inexperienced to do this well. So he ‘went back to the one physical area of training that was enjoyable – the warm-up games and exercises’.30 In these situations, some company 73

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members could do the warm-up exercises and some could not, so the participants were split between ‘movers and non-movers’.31 It is probable, surely, that Barker used some of these techniques with The Lion in Love company. Having learned from Littlewood’s practice of the ‘via negativa’, and suffered its humiliations, he probably took a more positive approach.32 After all, he had learned the hard way that it was better for an actor ‘to let something happen’ on stage rather than forcing it.33 Judging by the reviews of the show, Barker did succeed in creating a stage atmosphere that was realistic and coherent. Clearly, he was well on his way to believing that the acting ensemble ‘is the theatre’s greatest strength’ and that the role of the director is to ‘take the pressure off the actor and allow him [sic] to work freely’.34 Barker’s desire to have a unified ensemble of Littlewood stalwarts who would gel naturally on stage did suffer from two problems. One was cast changes: when the play transferred from the Belgrade to London two of the actors were replaced: Patricia Burke, a friend of Delaney and a Royal Court actor and radio star (she played Jimmy Clitheroe’s mother in the BBC’s The Clitheroe Kid) replaced Vanda Godsell as Kit, and Renny Lister replaced Sheila Allen as Nell. So both the actors playing the women in Frank’s life changed. It’s unclear how these changes affected the sense of a coherent ensemble. Added to this, there was a further problem: Barker must have made an early decision not to insist that all the actors had the same northern accent. In this he was going against something that Theatre Workshop had pioneered: the use of regional accents. For example, when Raffles wrote to critic Harold Hobson about A Taste of Honey he could admit: ‘I never believed that Manchester speech could be an essential part of a work of art, but she [Delaney] has succeeded in making it one.’35 In the reviews it is clear that in The Lion in Love the actors spoke with their own accents and this was seen as unrealistic. For example, critic John Russell Taylor noted that Patricia Burke’s Kit was ‘emotionally dead on centre, and yet somehow she failed to come over from the stage as a living character simply because the actress’s accent was wrong’.36 As Barker argues in Theatre Games, the actor is not ‘simply the mouthpiece for the dramatist’s words’ but ‘is the theatre’.37 For this reason, the tyro director might have thought that his cast should keep their own linguistic identities, because these were truer to themselves. He soon became an advocate of real-life speech, gradually discovering ‘that there is a great deal more dynamic physical movement (and use of musical range) in everyday speech than ever seems to find its way on to the stage’.38 Given that Littlewood had undermined his confidence to the extent that ‘words terrified’ him, The Lion in Love can be seen as a process of 74

‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love

experimentation with how to make speech seem natural on stage.39 Barker also used composer Norman, Mankowitz’s trusted collaborator, to replicate what one biographer calls ‘the rollicking atmosphere of a Joan Littlewood production’, with his ‘Delaney’s Theme’ played ‘in many different styles and rhythms, sometimes as a tango, sometimes as a waltz, a march or a cha-chacha’.40

The Lord Chamberlain The play also ran into some trouble with the Lord Chamberlain. Mankowitz’s company manager, Ben O’Mahony, applied for a licence to stage it and on 24 August, C. D. Heriot, the Lord Chamberlain’s reader, required changes to the use of the word ‘bugger’ and the exclamation ‘by Jesus’.41 He was unimpressed by the play: ‘It has no shape, no movement, no drama and only a kind of wry sentimentality’, and put his blue-pencil crosses in two places: once in Act Two, when Nora says, ‘These’ll keep the breezes from blowing round some bugger’s bottom.’42 The second cross was against ‘It’s a bugger of a life by Jesus!’43 The word ‘bugger’ was simply not allowed. After revisions were submitted during rehearsals, Heriot noted that ‘the Teddy Boy [Loll] is now made to come from Glasgow – I suppose to add a little variety to the accents’ and ‘the two “buggers” have been altered to “bastard”.’44 This was on 2 September with the play due to open on 5 September, so after a last-minute phone call, the licence was issued. Meanwhile, it was time to publicize the show.

At the Belgrade Theatre At a Belgrade Theatre press conference, a few days before the opening night of 5 September 1960, ‘Delaney was quiet, almost lifeless’, and Mankowitz did most of the talking: he said he chose the Belgrade because it offered ‘a first-class theatre for a group to work in’, underlining Barker’s ensemble approach.45 But the ensemble approach of the ‘New Team’ was not universally admired and the play got mixed reviews. According to a short piece in the Manchester Guardian, Mankowitz refused to allow critics from the national papers to review the show until its second week, although he did not go as far as he might have: it had become ‘the practice’ for ‘national newspapers to wait until a new play reaches London before taking official notice of it’.46 This 75

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meant that local critics got priority. Coventry’s newspaper praised much of the acting and the fact that Barker ‘has given the piece lively and varied pace’, although ‘he should, however, remember his sightlines’.47 The Birmingham Post said that Barker put ‘great emphasis, rightly, on the laughs’, but that most of the actors had different accents, with Goorney ‘more at home in Brixton’ than Salford, and Godsell ‘would never have been recognized north of Islington’.48 Likewise, The Stage’s critic commentated that Barker and his cast overestimated the Belgrade’s ‘possibly “too-perfect” acoustics’ because ‘it was disturbing for the audience at the first night to miss the first twenty minutes or so because the dialogue was seldom directed towards them’.49 Hugh Stewart, a BBC drama producer, noted that the ‘applause at the last curtain was less than half-hearted’.50 In the second week, reviews in the national newspapers were notably tougher. Gareth Lloyd Evans of the Manchester Guardian, for example, complained that ‘nothing happens’ and although ‘the dialogue is idiomatically hot and sharp as cinders’, ‘the setting by Una Collins is untidy without being convincing, with an ill-painted backcloth fronted by a half-and-half composite interior/exterior set’.51 After the play finished at the Belgrade it went on tour, and during its short run at the Palace Theatre, Manchester, in September, Delaney was interviewed by the Manchester Guardian, saying that she got ‘some consolation’ for bad reviews in Coventry because the play had attracted a young audience.52 But reviews continued to be negative: Manchester’s local critic called the play ‘a sprawling, shapeless creation’, while admitting that it ‘is pushed along at a vigorous pace as a result of some intelligent direction by Clive Barker’.53 At the Bristol Hippodrome, the local critic wrote: ‘The play is directed by Clive Barker (who was trained at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School) in an appropriately dismal and tawdry setting by Una Collins, another ex-trainee from the same school.’54 During the Belgrade staging and tour, further rewrites were made to the play text, with the Lord Chamberlain agreeing to changes four times in September. Poor press did have an effect on the show, despite all the media interest aroused by Delaney, still famous because of her hit debut. On 29 September, Mankowitz wrote to Barker, despairing because he couldn’t get any West End theatre to take her new play. ‘I’m very sorry indeed that I have been unable to make a deal for a London theatre for the show.’55 In an interview with the Salford City Reporter on 21 October, Mankowitz stated that he ‘lost money on tour’.56 Help came from an unexpected quarter: John Osborne, key playwright at the Royal Court, Littlewood’s rival venue for cutting-edge drama, saw the show in Bristol and George Devine, director of The English Stage Company 76

‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love

at The Royal Court, brought it to London, arguing that this was ‘an act of artistic faith in Delaney’s talent’.57 Not everyone agreed. According to critic David Nathan, who was unimpressed by the show in Coventry, the play had been ‘all set to die a quiet death’ before ‘on to the scene strode St George John Osborne slaying the dragon critic’.58 As the Sunday Dispatch commented, ‘Osborne meant it kindly, but he did 22-year-old Shelagh Delaney – as well as audiences – a disservice by encouraging her second play into London’.59

At the Royal Court The English Stage Company at the Royal Court paid Barker £60 to re-direct the show, which started rehearsals in London on 28 November 1960 with two cast changes and an extra scene between Frank and Nora added to Act Three (97–100).60 Other accounts also had to be settled. Three days before rehearsals began, Barker wrote to Mankowitz asking for his arrears of £431s-5d on his contract to be paid.61 By the time her play opened at the Royal Court on 29 December, Delaney – according to the anonymous critic of The Times – had ‘revised some of the dialogue and added a scene designed to strengthen the last act’, but ‘it cannot be said that these improvements make much difference’.62 Because of these changes, a new licence from the Lord Chamberlain’s Office was applied for on 6 December. In the process of revision, Delaney was deliberately provocative, adding bad language rather than toning it down. Heriot’s report on 19 December was scathing: ‘This lamentable play was re-read [meaning re-written] in an attempt to bring it up to West End standard, but it died before it could get there’; ‘Now, in a desperate attempt to inject new life into an old corpse, the author (and, I suspect, the producer [Barker]) have attempted to restore all the bad language and broaden what was already broad’.63 For his part, Barker noted that ‘His Lordship will not allow the word “bugger” in the script’ and listed five instances of changes to the text.64 These included cuts such as Andy’s suggestive description of how he looks after Nell, ‘And every morning and every night I make sure she’s in good working order’ (27), and Kit’s earthy assertion about Frank: ‘Just because Nora thinks the sun shines out of your backside’, amended in the published play text to ‘thinks you’re a tin god’ (95). His Lordship also censored the phrases ‘You dozey buggers’, ‘I’ve been a bit of a bugger’, ‘Good suffering Jesus’ and of course the last line, ‘It’s a bugger of a life, by Jesus’, which had originally been cut, but which Delaney had provocatively restored.65 The censor preferred the word ‘bastard’. 77

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This time, however, Barker was unwilling to accept these changes without a fight. On 20 December he typed a long letter to the Lord Chamberlain, arguing in favour of Delaney’s original text. In particular, he defended the repeated use of the word ‘bugger’, pointing out that it was commonly used in the north of England ‘in a totally different manner from it’s [sic] literal meaning. In most working class homes it is used as a term of grudging affection.’66 For evidence, he drew on his own life. ‘In my own home, the term “it’s a bugger” was freely used between parents and children’, who would never dare say ‘bastard’ for example.67 Barker especially defended the use of ‘bugger’ in Delaney’s final line, pointing out that the censor’s alternative of ‘bastard’ ‘is an offensive term and rings false’: ‘It is too vicious and bitter to convey the meaning Miss Delaney requires.’68 He stated too that at the end of the play, Kit ‘is under considerable emotional strain’, and that alternatives to the forbidden word were either ‘too vicious or too insipid’; finally, he reported that ‘a well-meaning attempt’ to substitute ‘It’s a begger [sic] of a life’ during some performances earned nothing but scorn from ‘the press and the public’, singling out the Manchester Guardian’s Gareth Lloyd Evans as being particularly critical.69 But it was no use – the Lord Chamberlain was unmoved. In the margin of Barker’s letter, Heriot wrote one word: ‘NO.’70 Mankowitz, Barker and Delaney had cut things rather fine by contesting the changes demanded by the Lord Chamberlain, and the new licence was issued on 29 December, the day of the play’s London opening. In fact, Pieter Rogers, the Royal Court’s general manager, agreed to the cuts at the very last minute and on 29 December offered to send someone from the theatre to collect the licence as soon as it was ready. Delaney was angry about the cuts, and included a small leaflet in the Royal Court programme, which stated her regret that audiences ‘will not have the opportunity of hearing all the script of the play as originally written’ because ‘certain important passages have had to be altered’, and although admittedly mainly trivial she felt that ‘the alterations to her script necessitated particularly by the removal of a word which is a current North Country expression [bugger] weaken the impact’ of the dialogues.71 She was especially incensed by the change to the play’s final line. Clearly, both Delaney and Barker felt that the Lord Chamberlain did not understand northern idioms and that the flavour of some of the dialogues had been weakened. The issue certainly rankled with the playwright and, during the play’s run, Delaney was featured in an article in the Sunday Dispatch entitled ‘HYPOCRISY’. In this interview she is described as ‘hot on hypocrisy’, the ‘national sport of the English’.72 Arguing that ‘everyone’ knows 78

‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love

what ‘four-letter words’ mean, and that they are ‘good, honest words’, she asks rhetorically, ‘Why do people try to pretend that when they are put in print they become pornographic!’73 She says that ‘The Lord Chamberlain spoiled the end by censoring a word I used in the line’, a word that to northern ears is ‘almost a term of endearment’, and made her substitute ‘bastard’, ‘a much harsher word’.74 She then pours scorn on an incident when she and other members of the company were excluded from a West End restaurant because they were scruffily dressed, and ends up by criticizing the H-bomb, marriage, established religion, social conventions and snobbery. She comes across as an Angry Young Woman. Given the critical response to her play at the Court, you can see why. The litany, by now familiar, was that it had no drama and no story. W. A. Darlington said that ‘it is verbose and dreary’ and a Times critic opined: ‘The play does not so much end as come to a stop.’75 Still, some of the major critics were more appreciative. Harold Hobson of the Sunday Times said that nearly all the time the play ‘sings; it is lyrical’; although he does not mention Barker, he admired the acting: Peg’s Act Two fairy story is ‘told with a sustained and quiet rapture by Patricia Healey, and listened to with a meditative seriousness by Howard Goorney’.76 Despite the intervention of the Lord Chamberlain, the last line, delivered by Patricia Burke, is ‘excellent’; she ‘expresses in it the meaning of the whole play, which is that life isn’t at all bad’.77 The only critic to quote the last line was Peter Lewis in the Daily Mail, who said the show ‘lacks a plot, a development, and a climax’, but its revised last line was perfectly effective: ‘Ee, life can be a bastard, can’t it?’78 Hobson’s rival, Kenneth Tynan, also praised the work’s authenticity in its portrayal of the urban poor, ‘especially the girls, sceptical and self-reliant’, but pointed out that ‘one cannot distinguish between lines that are intended to sound banal, and lines that are banal by accident’; he also praised Barker ‘whose use of music to enhance exits and entrances lends to the play a helpful tang of lyricism’.79 Bernard Levin of the Daily Express praised Delaney’s ‘accomplishment as a playwright’ but condemned the play as ‘a shockingly bad production, clumsy and stiff, [which however] cannot conceal some excellent acting’.80 The last lines of his review – ‘Miss Delaney can have any prize on the stall’ – were quoted in the published play text. The Manchester Guardian said that while Littlewood directed A Taste of Honey ‘with extreme gusto and bounce’ Barker’s effort was ‘limp and uncertain’.81 Tom Milne of the New Left Review thought Delaney was an English Chekhov.82 At the Court, The Lion in Love, remembered John Osborne, played to ‘poor houses’, about 40 per cent capacity, and when he attended ESC 79

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chairman Neville Blond’s annual lunch for critics at the Savoy during January 1961 he was ‘feeling especially spiky because of the obtusely vicious reception’ given to it by the press; ‘It was a classic example of a second play being demolished on the grounds of feigned admiration for a first play’s privately resented success’.83 In the end, however, the Court production earned a box office income of £3,049, more than twice the production costs, and, in defiance of what is usually perceived as a solely adversarial relationship, Rogers of the Court wrote to the Lord Chamberlain on 2 January 1961, thanking him for his help in expediting the licence.84

Afterlife of the New Team The ‘New Team’ which had staged Delaney’s second play then embarked on a more ambitious plan: to create the Clive Barker Community Theatre in Salford, Delaney’s home town. In February 1961 it was reported that Barker and Delaney ‘and a friend of hers, Una Collins’ were thinking of taking over the disused Salford Hippodrome and creating a community theatre. Barker took the lead, describing the venue as ‘a place for plays, concerts – jazz and classical – and a focal point for the community’.85 But the plan fell through. In a letter to the Salford City Reporter, Arthur Taylor, one of the plan’s promoters, defended the plan from attacks and especially from the ‘childish’ statement that this theatre group ‘was inspired by Communism’.86 Interestingly enough, The Lion in Love had a brief afterlife as an example of ‘naturalism in its purest form’ when New Left Review editor and cultural critic Stuart Hall wrote a polemical piece in Encore magazine entitled ‘Beyond Naturalism Pure’. He thought that Delaney’s second play ‘came as close as any play of substance in the period to reproducing the naturalism of everyday life’, but saw that the future of British theatre would draw more on absurdism to create new forms.87 Delaney was already being seen as old-fashioned. More recently, however, this view has been vigorously contested. The play, according to Maggie B. Gale, ‘heralds a new class of woman playwright who shows a stronger desire to experiment with form as well as content’.88

Conclusion The Lion in Love is one of post-war British theatre’s forgotten plays, remembered, if at all, merely as a flop, Delaney’s failure to follow up her 80

‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love

successful debut. On the international stage, it also performed poorly: in 1963, it made a brief appearance off-Broadway at One Sheridan Square – only to close after six performances.89 But, seen from the perspective of its director, The Lion in Love is a fascinating case study of how Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop inspired ‘A New Team’ of like-minded friends to produce a show which embodied many of her values, both political and theatrical. In the process, Barker, in his first major work as a director, tried to apply the lessons of his experiences at Stratford East not only to this one play, but also as a springboard for a more ambitious project of setting up a community theatre in Salford. Along the way, as The Lion in Love struggled to find a metropolitan venue after an out-of-town tour, Barker fought hard, right up to the last minute, with the censor to preserve the linguistic texture of Delaney’s original text, while at the same time encouraging his cast to achieve the naturalistic authenticity that was Littlewood’s hallmark, using music to imitate some of her exuberant onstage quality. Delaney, in her 1964 book, Sweetly Sings the Donkey, a collection of prose which mixes fact and fiction, quotes a fictional fan who writes to her asking for a loan: ‘Success spoils some people. I know it will not spoil you.’90 This might be true, but after her experiences with The Lion in Love Delaney virtually gave up playwriting. Similarly, Barker began to focus more on working in a university setting. It could be said that, in his case, failure did not spoil him. On the contrary, the experiences of the ‘New Team’ spurred him on: he now began systematically to develop his ideas about theatre games.

Note on Sources Play quotations from Shelagh Delaney, The Lion in Love (London: Methuen, 1961); Clive Barker’s letters and other materials from his archive, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance Library, Sidcup; programmes, reviews and newspaper cuttings from the V&A Theatre & Performance Archive; Joan Littlewood letters and Lord Chamberlain reports from the British Library.

Acknowledgements Thanks for help to Paul Fryer and Nesta Jones, Frank Trew, librarian of Rose Bruford College, Simon Trussler, and the staff of the V&A Theatre and 81

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Performance Archives, Coventry Archives, Theatre Royal Stratford East, and British Library.

Notes 1. Shelagh Delaney, The Lion in Love, Royal Court, 1960, programme. Barker played the Military Policeman in Ewan MacColl and Joan Littlewood’s The Good Soldier Schweik (Theatre Royal Stratford East, 1955; Duke of York’s, 1956); Cool for Cats on Associated Rediffusion (ITV) ran twice-weekly from December 1956 to February 1961, and was one of the first British shows to feature pop music for a teenage audience; and he played Feargus O’Connor, Volunteer, in Brendan Behan’s The Hostage (Theatre Royal Stratford East, 1958; Wyndham’s, 1959). 2. Littlewood, 529. The Hostage’s first performance was 14 October 1958. 3. Ibid., 530. 4. Ibid. 5. Quoted in ibid. 6. Ibid. 7. Delaney to Littlewood, n.d., Littlewood archive, British Library, Add Ms 89164/5/30. See also Joan Littlewood Archive Production Correspondence: Shelagh Delaney and A Taste of Honey, British Library website: https://www.bl. uk/collection-items/letters-between-shelagh-delaney-and-joan-littlewood-1960 (accessed 6 June 2019). 8. Littlewood to Delaney, 25 February 1960, British Library, Add Ms 89164/5/30. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Taylor, 136. 12. Play text epigraph. 13. Delaney, The Lion in Love programme. 14. Klaus, 141. 15. Lion in Love, Palace Theatre, Manchester, September 1960, programme, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 16. Dunn, 1–6, 83–140. 17. Mankowitz to Barker, 15 July 1960, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 18. Travis, 2010, online. 19. Audition list, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 20. Quoted in Harding, 98. 21. Anon, 22 August 1960; Norman,, BL Music Collections.

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‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love 22. Wilson, 12 August 1960. 23. Mankowitz to Barker, 26 August 1960, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 24. Quoted in Goorney, 165. See also 180–3. 25. Ibid., 166. 26. Ibid., 166, 174. 27. Ibid., 176. 28. Ibid., 190. 29. Barker, 6. 30. Ibid., 5. 31. Ibid., 4. 32. Ibid., 2–3. 33. Ibid., 3. 34. Ibid., 48–9. 35. Raffles to Harold Hobson, 22 May 1958, Littlewood archive, British Library, Add Ms 89164/5/28. 36. Taylor, 138. 37. Barker, 211. 38. Ibid., 206. 39. Ibid., 176. 40. Harding, 97. 41. Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP Corr 1960/1067. 42. Ibid., and Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP 1960/30, Lion in Love, II-1-5. 43. Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP 1960/30, Lion in Love, III-2-12. 44. Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP Corr 1960/1067. 45. N. K. W., 2 September 1960. 46. Anon, 6 September 1960. 47. N. K. W., 6 September 1960. 48. K. G., 6 September 1960. 49. Anon, 8 September 1960. 50. Quoted in Todd, 117. 51. Evans, 13 September 1960. 52. Quoted in Harding, 99. 53. John Mapplebeck, no headline, undated cutting, Clive Barker Collection, box 209.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy 54. John Coe, ‘Taste for “Lion” Is Second to “Honey” ’, undated cutting, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 55. Mankowitz to Barker, 29 September 1960, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 56. Quoted in Harding, 100. 57. Devine in Roberts, 78. 58. Nathan, 30 December 1960. 59. Anon, no headline, Sunday Dispatch, 1 January 1961. 60. Original playscript, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 61. Barker to Mankowitz, 25 November 1960, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 62. Anon, 30 December 1960. 63. Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP Corr 1960/1349. 64. Barker to Penn, 29 December 1960, Clive Barker Collection, box 209. 65. Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP 1960/49, Lion in Love, I-1-22, II-13, 2-25, III-1-11, III-1-12 and III-1-18. 66. Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP Corr 1960/1349. 67. Ibid. 68. Ibid. 69. Ibid. 70. Ibid. 71. Untitled leaflet in Shelagh Delaney, Lion in Love, Royal Court, 1960, programme. 72. Sewell, 1 January 1961. 73. Ibid. 74. Ibid. 75. Darlington, 30 December 1960; Anon, 30 December 1960. 76. Hobson, 1 January 1961. 77. Ibid. 78. Lewis, 30 December 1960. 79. Tynan, 1 January 1961. 80. Levin, 30 December 1960. 81. Hope-Wallace, 31 December 1960. 82. Quoted in Harding, 101. 83. Osborne, 172; statistic from Roberts, 78; see also Little and McLaughlin, 67. 84. Todd, 118; Harding, 102; Lord Chamberlain’s Papers, British Library, LCP Corr 1960/1067. 85. ‘ “Politics Killed Delaney Theatre Plan” ’, Clive Barker Collection, box 192; Harding, 109–13; Fielding, 28 February 1961.

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‘A New Team’: Clive Barker And Shelagh Delaney’s The Lion In Love 86. ‘ “Politics Killed Delaney Theatre Plan” ’, Clive Barker Collection, box 192. 87. Hall in Marowitz et al. (eds), 214. 88. Gale, 196. 89. Harding, 135. 90. Delaney, 97.

Bibliography Anon, ‘Coventry Debut for New Delaney Play’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, 22 August 1960. Anon, ‘Not Sent to Coventry’, Manchester Guardian, 6 September 1960. Anon, ‘The Lion in Love’, The Stage, 8 September 1960. Anon, ‘Revised Lion in Love’, The Times, 30 December 1960. Anon, ‘ “Politics Killed Delaney Theatre Plan” ’, Salford City Reporter, 26 January 1962. Barker, C., Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training, London: Eyre Methuen, 1977. Darlington, W. A., ‘Miss Delaney Past Hurdle’, Daily Telegraph, 30 December 1960. Delaney, S., Sweetly Sings the Donkey, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968. Dunn, A. J., The Worlds of Wolf Mankowitz: Between Elite and Popular Cultures in Post-War Britain, London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2013. Evans, G. L., ‘A Taste of Medicine’, Manchester Guardian, 13 September 1960. Fielding, H., ‘Shelagh Approaches Her Dream with Caution’, Daily Herald, 28 February 1961. Gale, M. B., West End Women: Women and the London Stage 1918–62, London: Routledge, 1996. Goorney, H., The Theatre Workshop Story, London: Eyre Methuen, 1981. Hall, S., ‘Beyond Naturalism Pure: The First Five Years’, Encore, 8:6, November 1961, in C. Marowitz et al. (eds), The Encore Reader: A Chronicle of the New Drama, London: Methuen, 1965. Harding, J., Sweetly Sings Delaney: A Study of Shelagh Delaney’s Work 1958–68, London: Greenwich Exchange, 2014. Hobson, H., ‘The Brightest Nights of 1960’, Sunday Times, 1 January 1961. Hope-Wallace, P., ‘The Lion in Love’, Manchester Guardian, 31 December 1960. K. G., ‘ “The Lion in Love” at the Belgrade, Coventry’, Birmingham Post, 6 September 1960. Klaus, H. G., ‘Delaney, Shelagh’, in K. A. Berney (ed.), Contemporary Dramatists, 5th edn, London: St James, 1993. Levin, B., ‘I’m Glad Miss Delaney Moved On’, Daily Express, 30 December 1960. Lewis, P., ‘Miss Delaney Takes the Stage for Lesson 2’, Daily Mail, 30 December 1960. Little, R. and McLaughlin, E., The Royal Court Theatre Inside Out, London: Oberon Books, 2007.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy Littlewood, J., Joan’s Book, London: Methuen, 2003. Marowitz, C. et al. (eds), The Encore Reader: A Chronicle of the New Drama, London: Methuen, 1965. N. K. W., ‘Miss Delaney Shy but Confident’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, 2 September 1960. N.K.W., ‘ “The Lion in Love” – Warm and Vital’, Coventry Evening Telegraph, 6 September 1960. Nathan, D., ‘This Lion Is Too Real for Me!’, Daily Herald, 30 December 1960. Norman, M., ‘Delaney’s Theme’, Score, British Library Music Collections VOC/1960/NORMAN. Osborne, J., Almost a Gentleman: An Autobiography Vol II: 1955–66, London: Faber, 1991. Roberts, P., The Royal Court Theatre and the Modern Stage, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Sewell, E., ‘HYPOCRISY ’, Sunday Dispatch, 1 January 1961. Taylor, J. R., Anger and After: A Guide to the New British Drama, London: Eyre Methuen, 1962. Todd, S., Tastes of Honey: The Making of Shelagh Delaney and a Cultural Revolution, London: Chatto & Windus, 2019. Travis, A., ‘To Russia with Love: Wolf Mankowitz Suspected of Bonding with the Enemy’, The Guardian, 26 August 2010, available at https://www.theguardian. com/uk/2010/aug/26/wolf-mankowitz-bond-spy. Tynan, K., ‘The Lion and the Mange’, Observer, 1 January 1961. Wilson, C., ‘The Sagan of Salford . . . Still Waiting for a Real Taste of Money’, Daily Mail, 12 August 1960.

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CHAPTER 7 THEATRE GAINS: REMEMBERING CLIVE Ceri Pitches (formerly Edwards)

1988. Very early October and some twenty strangers gather together in a classroom on the top floor of a four-storey corporate-looking building somewhere in the West Midlands. There’s a nervousness, a tension in the atmosphere because these individuals, forming here as a group for the very first time, would be spending the next three years getting to know each other, working and playing together, growing – together and apart, learning and revealing much about themselves in the process. There was a need to impress, to stand out or to be in control. Some felt this need more strongly than others, such as the young woman sitting cross-legged on a table near the door, confidently demanding each new entrant introduced themselves: ‘So who have we here?’ I, nineteen years old, more than a little naïve and hailing from the nearby East Midlands (perhaps the two were not unrelated?), found a seat at the edge of the group and listened in some awe and wonder at the ease of flow in the conversation, not to mention the diversity of accents. My new companions had, it seemed, arrived from all over the country – from leafy suburbs of London, from towns such as Tenby, Bolton and Winchester to industrially named places I’d never even heard of like Grays and Barrow-inFurness. This was pre-internet, pre-mobile phones, remember, and the world, even the UK, seemed a much smaller place back then. Thus it was, the inaugural gathering of the University of Warwick, BA Theatre Studies and Dramatic Art, Class of ’91. Most of us had taken Theatre Studies at A Level and arrived with preconceptions of what university drama was going to be about, but I doubt any of us had imagined our first encounter with an actual lecturer would be as surprising and indeed, perhaps as confusing as it actually was. Eventually, into the room came a slightly scruffy, short-ish, round-ish and distinctly hairy person with a mischievous smile and definite glint in his eye. Several of the group would later recall him as a sort of ‘Santa Claus’ figure or loveable, cuddly uncle. This was, of course, Clive Barker. All eyes were now on him, any vying for high status amongst our group quickly forgotten as we hungrily soaked up the wisdom our new

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tutor had to impart. Or did we? Clive had a most unusual demeanour and from that very first encounter, a habit we would later become used to of casually wandering around the entire space as he spoke. In this instance, the space was a conventional classroom with tables and chairs facing the front, and, since it was on the end of the building, it had windows on at least two sides. This was important, because on this occasion, as he spoke, Clive would sometimes pause and gaze out of the windows before moving away, gliding softly and mysteriously around the room to the extent that it would not have surprised some of us if he’d simply opened a window and floated away. That a number of us recollect this same feeling many years later is testament to the impression his eccentricity made on us in those first few moments. He was quite simply like nothing most of us had ever encountered in a teacher before and his physical actions often distracted from everything else. What he talked about, I can’t now recall. I probably didn’t understand much of it, as my overriding memory is of his words coming forth in a seemingly disconnected stream of complex ideas. Nevertheless, this was our introduction to the whole degree course and as a welcome gift he set us the extraordinary challenge of a ‘choice’ of two essay questions: Why theatre? or Theatre, why? I think I found this mostly confusing, and dare I admit, a little irritating. Was it some kind of test designed to reveal to Clive something unknown about ourselves depending on whichever title we selected? Or the sign of a lazy lecturer unwilling to commit time to devising more varied questions? Perhaps something made up on the spot before he floated out of the window and away towards Coventry? Certainly, this moment was to go down in the annals of ‘Clive’s history’, and nearly all of my former classmates consulted recall also being perplexed at the so-called ‘choice’. ‘If it were done when ’tis done, ’twere well it were done quick’ he repeated mantra-like several times, dramatically enunciating every syllable, all buck teeth and wide eyes behind thick lenses, perhaps inspired by the Kathakali dancers he would introduce us to much later. Possibly Clive was evoking the spirit of Macbeth as a means to spur us on to get cracking with the task at hand, to start writing as soon as possible, lightening the mood, sensing some resistance in the room to his essay challenge. But more likely he was just simply enjoying himself. I can’t recollect how I addressed the essay question, or indeed, which title I chose, but I do know that I would have answered it diligently and seriously, eagerly hoping to find the ‘right’ answer, qualities of mine at that time in my life that made me, ironically, a less than ideal student for someone like Clive. I realize now that he was being playful. There was no right or wrong answer. 88

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I think he was simply hoping to encourage us to set free our minds from the rigid confines of an A Level syllabus, which back in the 1980s, did little more than shore up the now defunct notion that all performance began in the sixth century bc with Thespis, and that staging something ‘in the round’ was truly cutting edge. As I was to learn throughout three years of study in sporadic classes with Clive, he was all about getting us to shake off our inhibitions – both physically and intellectually – and the Why theatre? / Theatre, why? conundrum was simply the very first step in that direction. Massages, relaxation exercises and walking, endless walking. Clive’s practical sessions were something else. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see now that some of his approach must have been influenced by his deep involvement with theatre anthropology and his experiences across Europe, Asia and Latin America. We didn’t know much about these at the time, save for the fact that he sometimes referred to spending vacation time working in faroff places like Bogotá and of course, there were our group trips to the Midland Arts Centre in nearby Birmingham to witness the Kathakali dance-dramas. Practical work with Clive, though, was totally unexpected and often required us to reveal more of ourselves than some of us might have liked, myself included. I think we were all aware that he had written Theatre Games and that it was quite a big deal. My then boyfriend (now husband), also studying drama, at Birmingham University, remarked with envy how lucky we were to actually be taught by the man himself. I’m not sure I felt lucky at the time. We spent an extraordinary amount of time massaging each other from tip to toe, in pairs, laid out on the dusty floor in the studio at Westwood campus, my own private inhibitions often leaving me feeling overwhelmed with embarrassment at being poked and pinched in all sorts of places. This pair work would eventually give way to solitary relaxation and meditation exercises as Clive intoned, inviting us to imagine our bodies as a clear Perspex shell filled with a swirling green liquid which gradually seeped out of us through different exit points, leaving our limbs feeling light and energized, ready to work. As an aside, when I became a drama teacher myself some years later, I borrowed this (as well as other Theatre Games exercises) in an effort to prepare my own students for focused work in the studio. I’m not sure how successful it was, but I like to think that those who went on to study drama at a higher level were a little more prepared for casting off their physical inhibitions than I had been. ‘Your body is your instrument,’ Clive would often say, I’m sure with a glint in his eye, ‘and you must tune it and practise it.’ This was surely part of all the walking and the massage. 89

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During these intense warm-up and relaxation sessions Clive was often keen that we should locate our chakras, unblock them and discover a freedom of feeling and expression previously unencountered. As one of my cohort put it, massage and chakras and meditation made for a rather sensual and heady mix and was a world away from the arid cerebral academia they’d anticipated. This was my feeling too. Most aspects of working with Clive either in the classroom or the studio were unpredictable and enigmatic, requiring much risk-taking and a generous dose of trust. Very, very occasionally, certain elements of this trust were misplaced, such as an unexpected and unwelcome encounter on one occasion when we played ‘Climbing the Matterhorn’. More enjoyable was the hilarity in the studio as we struggled to remain composed during an extended session of ‘The Court of the Holy Dido’, learning far more about self-control and heightened sense awareness through that one seemingly silly exercise than we would have thought possible. I can’t be certain, but I think this game might have been played in the context of Clive’s infamous third-year comedy option course. One friend remembers the experience of studying with Clive in this context as mildly humiliating. Indeed, for me, with a self-consciousness that although diminished, still exists in later life, Clive’s sessions presented an enormous struggle and were sometimes a painful experience. One of his most frequent approaches in the studio centred around observation. We were instructed to intently watch each other’s movements and physical behaviours – always good fun if you were the watcher, less so when you were the subject! Clive seemed to derive great enjoyment from spotting some small physical trait or mannerism that you were previously unaware of and highlighting it for all to see. We’d then take turns to re-enact the witnessed behaviour, exaggerating every tiny element in it for comedic effect. It felt cripplingly embarrassing at the time, even for the most confident amongst us, and I didn’t understand the purpose, but now I think he was trying to get us to pare back ourselves, to see ourselves with fresh eyes so that we could each take a critical stance on our own physicality and start to build something new. None of this was meant in an unkind way, of course, but as a means for establishing a starting point for our comic personas. And my recollection is that Clive would join in, also laying himself bare to be picked apart, not expecting us to do anything that he wasn’t also willing to undertake. In a very simple way, he seemed to be able to connect the selected physical traits with elements of our own personalities, a sort of starting point for psychoanalysing ourselves to help with building the persona. Something along the lines of ‘You are 90

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moving like this because you are concealing your fear of x. So how can you use that to inform your comic self?’ I think too that he was attempting to train us to be highly aware of ourselves and our environments, to notice every little detail and store them away for future use when developing a character. A further memorable aspect of the practical element of the comedy course was Clive’s near-obsession with us finding our strongest spot in the performance space. When it became time to take your turn, you’d enter the space and walk to wherever you believed your ‘spot’ to be, inevitably, at the beginning at least, downstage centre. The assembled audience of classmates would then assess whether or not we had judged this accurately, debating with each other their reasons for the assessment while you stood passively waiting on your spot. If it was deemed not to be the strongest spot, as was often the case, we had to find another location, sometimes just inches away from the original location. What was this all about? It seemed to make little sense at the time: as with many aspects of Clive’s teaching, its meaning and value were not immediately apparent. Looking back, I believe his interest was in getting us to understand that a body can transform the energy in a space and become a dynamic force. His goal was to enable us to work out for ourselves that downstage centre might actually be the least interesting spot on the stage. Alongside all the walking and physical mimicry, the central task of the comedy option was to search into our pasts and locate experiences and encounters that we could use as the material from which to construct our comic routines. Many of us recall that Clive encouraged us to choose memories that might have been awkward or difficult in some way, presumably the intention being that if we could laugh at ourselves against all the odds then the audience were more likely to laugh too. These valiant attempts to transform us all into stand-up comics, alongside our study of Trevor Griffiths’s Comedians (1976), met with varying degrees of success within the group. It was clear that some were natural-born comedians, swiftly understanding the precise blend of physicality and vocal delivery that were needed to create hilarious effect. Others instinctively realized the vast comic capacity for visual irony, as with one friend who, for their final assessed stand-up routine, costumed themselves in their Salvation Army uniform from home. The fact that the wearer, like most of us, had made more than their fair share of the opportunities for cheap alcohol consumption in the Student Union bars, only served to enhance the comic contrast of actual behaviour with the Methodist principles represented by the uniform. I’m 91

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sure Clive would have mischievously encouraged this – as he did with two fellow students who chose to work as a comic duo, doubting Clive’s suggestion that they should sing a witty duet with the utmost seriousness, but feeling gratified when the audience fell about laughing that they had followed his advice. I didn’t excel at the comedy option, but I gave it my very best shot. I did learn much about the kind of performer I was and could be, and in many ways, I think that was as important a lesson as anything. In the same way as Clive’s practical teaching stripped us down so that we could rebuild more nuanced and knowledgeable versions of ourselves, so too the comedy option course made us expose some of our most personal moments and fears, making us vulnerable within the safety of his studio, so that we could find courage and strength in confronting our weaknesses. Maybe I’m over-rationalizing all this with the passing of time, but I do know that the humiliation I felt at not being a natural stand-up comic was outweighed by a sense of personal achievement that I had, at least, stood up and tried! Remembering Clive and thinking about what it was like to share the classroom and the studio with him, almost thirty years after we left, gives rise to more questions than answers. But I have a strong sense of it all, perhaps inevitably, leading back to his earliest challenge, Why theatre? / Theatre, why? His teaching seems very much to have been about helping us find the many and varied solutions to that problem over the course of our three undergraduate years. For some, the lessons as they were learned at the time have endured. One friend, an actor, recalls Clive’s tip of massaging your ‘third eye’ in the moments before entering the performance space. Located in the middle of your forehead, just above your eyes, awakening it through massage brings direction and focus leading to greater intensity and concentration in performance – this friend still uses it today. Another, a drama teacher, often returns to the practice of copying each other’s walking, sometimes to enhance students’ observational technique, sometimes purely as a time filler – maybe it was sometimes just that for Clive too! For me, Clive was puzzling and often provocative, a great believer, I think, of pointing you in the right direction and gently pushing you off the side to navigate your own path through messy and complex experiences, but nearly always there to help steer you back to safety should you go too far off course. He was enigmatic and esoteric, the radical heart of the Warwick course. On reflection, he was perhaps a surprising choice for what was then a distinctly academic course, but without exception he is remembered amongst my cohort for providing the most exciting and eagerly anticipated practical encounters. Spontaneity over predictability, risk over security, no right and 92

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no wrong are just some of the messages that now, as time has passed, I understand Clive was advocating – messages that are as useful in some aspects of life as they are in theatre. He was simple and complex, brilliant and straightforward. We were very lucky to have been taught by him. We just didn’t know it at the time.

Acknowledgements For generously sharing their recollections and memories of Clive and our undergraduate days at Warwick, I am very grateful to members of the Class of ’91 cohort: Mark Frost, Sian Morrison, Karen Palmer, Emma Schad, Maria Straw-Cinar and Tamsin Walker.

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CHAPTER 8 CLIVE BARKER AND MOVEMENT Dick McCaw

Introduction Clive Barker is watching a video recording of him leading the Clocking Game. He turns to me and says, ‘Well at least there’s one thing I know, and that’s how to observe movement.’ This rather laconic admission prompts a number of questions: How did Barker develop and then display this knowledge of movement observation? What constitutes such a knowledge? What is it that you know when you know how to observe movement? To answer these questions I will draw on passages from Theatre Games, on a long interview I conducted with him in 2003, on transcripts of comments he made when watching himself teach, and on a number of articles written by him in the thirty years between 1974 and 2003. While the arc of this chapter is historical, the main focus will be on Barker’s negotiation with two pioneers of movement study: Rudolf Laban (1879–1958) and Moshé Feldenkrais (1904–84). I will explore how Barker’s eye for movement observation and his approach to teaching movement for actors were developed through his negotiations with the writings of both men. I will conclude with an analysis of his various commentaries on the Clocking Game and argue that it sums up Barker’s whole approach to theatre-making and improvisation.

Influences Barker offers a theatrical genealogy where Piscator and Copeau were his grandfathers and Stanislavsky his uncle. They ‘opened gates for me leading to such influences as Delsarte and other movement pioneers’.1 Note how, from the beginning, Barker’s interest in movement is informed by its use in theatre. He explains that in the 1960s there was a ‘confusion of choice’ in teaching methods which meant that there was ‘a range of methodologies within the same area of theatre pedagogy – the movement work of Laban

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being a significant example of this’. He referred to the ‘appetite and impetus of the auto-didact’ who was combining different methods to create new, specialized forms of practice. However, he warned that such specialization was often ‘achieved at the expense of a total, integrated view of the theatre’.2 Even though he found reading Laban difficult going, ‘at least you knew what philosophy and range of ideas you were dealing with’.3 Barker possessed the genius of an autodidact in being able to take essential principles from a huge range of works – technical, sociological, philosophical – and then create his own ‘total, integrated view of the theatre’.

Learning Laban movement Barker’s study of Laban reveals a lot about his teaching and understanding of theatre. When he first joined Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1955, he would ‘read and study avidly’; he bought Laban’s ‘book [Mastery of Movement?] and spent the next six years working through it on the kitchen table’. At the same time he enjoyed Jean Newlove’s ‘classes in movement, which owed a lot to Laban’; they were ‘fraught with division. The company split into two groups. Half of us turned up at 9am and did class. The others turned up at 9.30am, took a brief look at us, [. . .] and went off for a coffee’.4 While these classes ‘revealed movements which I could not carry out, and that work attracted me more’, it deterred other actors in the company. ‘The reason for their failure did not lie in any lack of physical aptitude. It lay in the mind. Faced with having to carry out technical exercises they somehow seized up and became mentally distressed. The experience created tensions within the company as it split into two groups, movers and non-movers.’5 This theme of the conscious mind interfering with the free and spontaneous movement of the body echoes throughout his writings and workshops. He calls this a conflict between the front and the back brain and realized that an intellectual approach – gained from book-learning – can interfere with a more physical way of learning. The challenge was to find a way of teaching this second way of learning. This conflict between learning through books or through bodily movement lies at the heart of how Laban movement is taught. It had ‘always been for me the best basis for movement objectivisation’, Barker says, but he then adds that ‘the best movement teachers teach movement, not the system’.6 This is because less enlightened or less confident teachers focus on the terminology rather than the movement qualities that they refer to, and this 96

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Figure 5 Clive Barker and Dick McCaw playing a reaction game, International Workshop Festival, 2001 from the video produced by Arts Documentation Unit (https://vimeo.com/358019143). Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

inhibits rather than encourages movement since it supplies ‘preconceived intentions and effects to be pursued’.7 Furthermore, focusing on the purpose (or ‘preconceived intentions and effects’) of a movement pushes the student ‘towards doing the exercise, “properly” or “well” or “efficiently” as an end in itself ’8 rather than understanding these different ways of movement through the experience of doing them. This last point already looks forward to Feldenkrais’s notion of ‘Awareness Through Movement’. When Barker was performing in Littlewood’s production of Brendan Behan’s The Hostage (1958–9), he and other company members decided to continue their movement training. Having been ‘elected’ to lead the sessions, he realized two things: ‘I didn’t have the trained skills of Jean [Newlove] and 97

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when I tried to correct myself I became self-conscious and clumsy. Whatever I understood about Laban was in my head not my body.’ For all his kitchentable reading of Laban, this theoretical knowledge couldn’t help him teach others how to move. In desperation he turned to games he ‘had played as a child in the boy scouts and I started feeding these into the classes. People began moving, so something was being achieved, however rudimentary.’9 At the same time he and fellow actor Brian Murphy ‘began to wander round the streets of London observing how people moved’; in libraries, art galleries, railway stations they would compare the movement patterns they had observed, and a ‘natural consequence was applying the lessons learned to observation in the classes’.10 The account above offers a preliminary answer to the question of how Barker learned to observe movement which in turn informed his teaching, a relay he describes in Theatre Games as ‘an alternating process of doing, and watching others do. [. . .] One acts, one watches, one acts again, one watches again and so on.’11 The problems and discoveries arising from these early experiences of teaching and learning movement would echo throughout his writings. We are dealing here with two kinds of knowledge: knowing what and knowing how (a distinction made by philosopher Gilbert Ryle), each with its own appropriate form of learning; the teaching and learning strategies of one cannot be applied to the other. Already this discussion of actor training has taken us into much broader realms of philosophy and pedagogy. Throughout his career Barker struggled with the status and claims of these two types of knowing. If he proudly announced to me that he knew how to observe movement it was because the status of this knowledge was neither recognized nor even fully understood in academia. In his 2003 interview he remarked how Mark Evans12 had ‘pointed out an important feature of my work, which is that it is related to a physical working-class society’. This distinction – between intellectual and practical knowledge – used to carry over into higher education in the UK, with universities teaching academic subjects and polytechnics practical ones. This tension between knowing what and how lies at the heart of how we learn movement. We have already seen Barker describe how overthinking a movement prevents one from performing it. The verbal-analytical intellect is not just the wrong tool for the job, it actually gets in the way of embodied learning. Play was a crucial part of his strategy for getting students out of their heads into the whole of their bodies. In this way Barker would create a situation in which students could make their discoveries and not worry about failing or falling flat on their faces. 98

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Writing Theatre Games The writing of Theatre Games reflects this tension between intellect and practice, between the institutions of academia and professional theatre, between him working at Birmingham University and at the Northcott Theatre, Exeter. He recalls that ‘four days after deciding to leave Birmingham University, I sat down to write, and finished the book inside three weeks’. If it could only have been written because he was leaving, equally it ‘could not have been written if I hadn’t come to Birmingham’.13 While there he had engaged in ‘an intensive period of study’ during which he ‘had looked at Feldenkrais and got stuff on F. M. Alexander from Jane Winearls, and we also had discussions about Laban, Kurt Jooss and Sigurd Leeder [two of Laban’s most celebrated pupils]’.14 Barker’s book is the product of both academic study and debate, and practical experiment and reflection, the one tested and refined by the other. Theatre Games marked a watershed in his thinking: he had started to understand how mind and body can work together. He explains: ‘Slowly I have been pushed towards learning about the interaction of mind and body through the nervous system’ and continues, ‘I have ended up with an understanding of the nervous system as an explanation for what I was doing. It seems the clearest way of explaining it in a book.’15 While at Birmingham he had built up a library, ‘and worked through all these books: Feldenkrais’s The Body and Mature Behaviour being one in particular’,16 I would argue that he got his ‘understanding of the nervous system’, which includes the crucial distinction between front and back brain, from Feldenkrais’s book. He knew that it was neurophysiological principles like this that should be in a book. Feldenkrais is referenced frequently throughout Theatre Games; he provides a theoretical foundation for Barker’s ideas about ‘how people stand, how they move, how they relate to each other in various situations’;17 in other words, about movement observation. One major concept is that the human brain consists of a more cognitively orientated front brain which is responsible for ‘the deliberate conscious control and direction of my actions’ and a back brain which ‘appears to control my physical actions and reactions instinctively without my being directly conscious of what is happening’.18 Much of Barker’s observation and teaching is informed by this crucial distinction. Like Feldenkrais, he was interested in what stops us moving with ease and economy, and his belief that ‘Somehow if you let the back part of the brain work, without conscious interference, the body works more efficiently. If you concentrate on making the body work, you interfere with 99

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its working.’19 Barker’s thinking here chimes in with that of Feldenkrais and theatre practitioners from Peter Brook, to Jerzy Grotowski, to Keith Johnstone,20 all of whom argue that what blocks spontaneous and fluent movement is conscious thought. Although Barker’s neurophysiology may be patchy (Feldenkrais was his only source), his constant enquiry into movement means that his comments about perception, attention and reaction are now being borne out in contemporary neuroscience.21 He had an acute understanding of both the importance and the limitations of conscious control. For example, a learner driver is awkward precisely because everything is being done ‘consciously: changing gear, turning the wheel and pressing down the accelerator. Once you have learned to drive you can operate unconsciously.’ He offers another example of this phenomenon: ‘When jumping along stepping stones or crossing the road if you are too conscious you make mistakes, whereas for the most part our back brain instructs our body as to how it can get us where we want to be.’22 These comments were on ‘reaction games’ where he could gauge how much or little students slowed because they were thinking. The next concept developed from Feldenkrais is what Barker calls ‘body/ think, or the kinaesthetic sense, by means of which muscular motion, weight, position in space, etc., are perceived’. He explains that body/think is the ‘process by which we subconsciously direct and adjust the movements of our bodies in space, either in response to external stimuli, or to intentions arising in the mind’.23 Later he argues that actors ‘need to understand through sensation the workings of their own bodies’.24 Note how Barker describes what is usually considered a sense as a form of thinking. This notion of a kind of bodily thinking explains a later passage in Theatre Games where he suggests that an actor might ‘think’ of making a ‘movement several times before actually doing it’. He immediately distinguishes this kind of body/ think from ‘making a conscious decision to move, or thinking about moving’. No, this is a process where the actor simulates a movement in their imagination, trying ‘to be aware of the chain of movements involved in the action without actually following through to the movement itself.’25

Balance and alignment Whether we consider balance a skill or a sense, it is most certainly a faculty that is operated unconsciously. It is also central to Barker’s conception of intelligent movement. While he drew some of his information from 100

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Feldenkrais, he also learned a lot from playing and watching cricket and would often talk about actors who play on the front or the back foot. He explained to students in 1996 that actors need a more acute sense of balance than what we use in everyday life, which is why some of his games ‘work at the basic elements of balance’.26 On page 38 of Theatre Games is the Harvard University Chart, which indicates perfect posture (neither leaning forward nor backwards, but on centre). So many of his comments about movement and posture feature this coronal line: It doesn’t matter what the age or condition of the person is, when their body pulls on line then that is beauty for me. I have never lost the joy of seeing the body. I sometimes feel guilty being paid for my work because of the joy that I get out of it in this way.27 He was a great observer of bodies, because he loved seeing them move with intelligence.

Teaching acting and theatre games A central tenet for Barker is that ‘One cannot teach “acting”. One can only create situations in which the actor can learn and develop.’28 In short it is about ‘letting something happen rather than making it happen’,29 which returns us to his distinction between front (‘making’) and back (‘letting’) brain. Barker’s Theatre Games and Feldenkrais’s lessons in Awareness Through Movement (‘ATM’) are such situations for learning. When Feldenkrais argues that the most important thing is that a student learns how to learn,30 this process of learning is about developing an ‘awareness of themselves in action’.31 Quite how Barker developed a way of teaching that so closely echoes that of Feldenkrais is a mystery, because he never actually studied the Method and never took an ATM. Intuitively, Barker developed a unique form of teaching where, as Feldenkrais put it, ‘The accent is on the learning process, rather than on the teaching technique.’32 Above, we saw why Barker turned to theatre games as a means of feeling different qualities of movement; now we turn to how he used them in practice. He explains how he uses games ‘as parables. They are images of action, through which general principles and laws are transformed into living sensations of cause and effect, which make the processes involved easier to understand.’33 His definition echoes David Zinder’s description of exercises 101

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as ‘models of behavior’ where actors ‘have to develop a mechanism for turning the “behavior” into a learning experience’.34 Both men describe how actors develop an awareness of what happens when one performs certain actions. Once Barker had developed his form of teaching based on theatre games, and following the publication of his book in 1977, he kept on ‘doing the same work’, but admitted that it became ‘deeper and more refined’ as he became ‘more interested in what is the core of acting’.35 Barker’s work begins with the premise that the object of a game or an exercise ‘is to reveal to the actor what happens when he works, and to help him be aware of the mind/body processes involved in his work’. It follows, then, that a teacher should ‘never predict what value any individual will get or take from any exercise. One should never try to make an exercise or game “work”; one should set it up and let it take place.’36 This requires a particular skill, with the teacher following and listening rather than guiding and instructing. Barker considers games to be an example of a child’s ‘process of learning through experimentation’.37 He goes on, ‘One goes back to the root processes of learning, by which he [i.e. the child] acquired movement skills in the first place, and this helps him rediscover lost skills, or those which have atrophied. . . . It substitutes for the pain of learning the joy of re-discovery.’38 This surely has been influenced by his reading of Feldenkrais. What characterizes both men’s accounts of childhood learning is that it was self-directed and rooted in the child’s own experience. Their approach was heuristic – that is, about the student or child making their own discoveries. How do games work? By the adherence to a set of rules: ‘I discovered that in many children’s games the “rules” constitute a resistance against which the players struggle to raise their skill to a higher level.’39 Might it be that these rules, these constraints, become our point of focus, and thus take our mind off anything else? It is precisely the effort of following the rules that occupies our mind and thus, unawares, we allow ourselves to explore non-everyday situations. But games are not just useful for training, they can also unlock the central situation of a play. When rehearsals on Littlewood’s (unperformed) production of Danton’s Death hit a problem, she proposed a game to discover the solution. Through many playings of ‘The Raft of Medusa’, ‘basically a horse-play game’, they managed to ‘create the style of a production’, but, he adds, in a way that ‘bypasses intellectual activity. The physical actions are already going on in the raft scene before the intellectual work, the painting is brought in. If the painting is brought in first you start posing from the 102

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exterior.’40 Once again, the creative approach involves physical action rather than intellectual reflection. The emotional truth of the scene comes from an involvement in the physical action, in the situation of the game. Throughout Theatre Games Barker offers other examples of games as ‘models of action’. He takes a game where a player identifies one person as a friend to whom they want to get close, and another as an enemy whom they want to avoid. He continues, In a way this is a model for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and produces images that you can use in a production. It gets the actors to play the action of the scene and they can begin to feed in the dialogue as well; thus you get dialogue which is alive and sustained by a physical memory within the actors.41 Some readers may already have seen a connection with Stanislavsky’s later Method of Physical Actions. Barker acknowledges the connection and notes that the ‘physical memory’ mentioned above is ‘not something from your biographical past but something from the rehearsal period, something much more focused and immediate’. In this sense the theatre game is like an étude – or improvisational study – that Stanislavsky would create in his later method. An ATM, a game, an étude – all of these are situations in which the student learns through heuristic activity. Movement qualities and theatre games Despite everything Barker has said about his reluctance to engage in Laban’s theory, he does actually address the concept of movement qualities in some detail. Commenting on his 2001 workshop for the International Workshop Festival,42 he explains how Laban classified the three elements that characterize movement – these are: Weight – all movements indulge or fight against gravity; Space – all movements exist in space and move between emphasizing direction or indulging in its use; Time – all movements exist in time. They move between being quick and being sustained.43

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In his 1996 workshop he describes them slightly differently: ‘All movement exists in time; it is either quick or sustained. All movement exists in space: it is either direct or indirect. All movement has a relationship to gravity: either it is heavy or light.’44 This closely paraphrases Laban’s description of what he calls ‘Movement Factors’ in The Mastery of Movement,45 his book that directly addresses questions of theatre. Barker’s remarks preface his commentary on two classic theatre games, ‘Grandmother’s Footsteps’ and ‘Pirate’s Treasure’. In the first, ‘one player faces the wall, while the rest gather at the wall furthest from him or her. They attempt to creep up to touch the back of the isolated player. He or she can turn round at any moment and those players who he catches still moving are sent back to the base wall to start again.’46 The kind of movement required in this exercise is ‘quick, light and direct’, or ‘dabbing’ in Laban terminology. In Pirate’s Treasure ‘the player who is “it” sits on a chair blindfolded and the other players in small groups try to creep up silently and steal coins which lie at his or her feet. If the “pirate” hears them he points in the direction he or she thinks the sound had come from. I stand behind the “pirate” and it is my judgement whether he or she has caught them or not.’ The timing of the movement in this game is different to the first: it is sustained rather than quick. Barker explains why the ‘training of the sustaining element is important, since people give themselves away by not sustaining but taking rests.’47 Players give themselves away when they start moving again, with knees cracking or floorboards creaking with the increased pressure. Barker has made a case for how games can train students to move with different qualities, but what is the connection with acting? His first answer is that while children can use a full range of movement, ‘as we grow up we reject some of these categories as not being useful to us’. He confesses that because he was ‘used to getting things done’, his dominant movement quality was ‘punching’, that is, strong, quick and direct. Therefore, as an actor he ‘had to work for long times at light, indirect and sustained movement, otherwise I could only play characters who are “punchy”.’ Put more generally, the purpose of effort training ‘is to help extend the range of an actor’s movement’: ‘For example, you cannot play a role such as Coriolanus with quick, light direct movements predominating. There has to be weight and some sustaining. The opposite also obtains. There are some characters in Chekhov’s plays who have little sense of direction, no clear intention and little sense of purpose.’48 More generally still, there is a connection with certain types of movement and emotional states. Barker dwells on ‘what is called a “wringing” action – 104

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heavy, sustained and indirect’ and notes how many metaphors ‘connect wringing or twisting with emotion: “it wrung a cry out of him” or “his guts knotted up”. All that action is associated with deep emotion.’49 Barker understands that Laban’s effort actions can only be understood and should only be taught through movement practice. They are a thing felt. This goes both for an actor understanding how to broaden their range of movement, and learning how to observe movement.

All that jazz (commentaries on the Clocking Game) This is where we start talking about theatre jazz because the actor is in a situation where he or she is constantly responding to what the other person does and not making statements or blocking other people off.50 The sign of a good game for Barker was that it would take you to the core of theatre – improvisation-like theatre, which is about responding to rather than blocking questions: ‘So often the stage is littered with questions that none of the actors have picked up.’ His old friend from Theatre Workshop would say to him that his ‘ambition was just to give one performance in which he has only one conscious objective or intention, and that was the one that took him out of the wings on to the stage. The rest should come from reflex reaction to what happened out there.’51 This comment brings together many themes and preoccupations around spontaneity, responsiveness and consciousness. I shall offer a short description of the ‘Clocking Game’ for those readers unfamiliar with it. This was the third exercise after the rowdier ‘Tail Tag’ and ‘Finger Tag’, both of which were competitive tagging games. He describes it as follows: The players simply stand in space and look at the other players. They are then free to move around and enjoy the contacts that arise spontaneously from the encounters with other players. [. . .] The ultimate state is to ask players to take up their places in space and only to move when some internal urge presses on them. The stress is now taken off action, or willed intention, and what happens is as near as we can get to total reaction.52

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The Clocking Game involves the players moving when they feel moved, but never following a conscious impulse. Although he never described it as such, I would say that it is about responding to a change in the space that results from someone else moving. Their move might make you feel cornered, crowded in, or might open a space to which you want to move. The changes in space are what should prompt your responses. He admits that ‘People will find it difficult not to generate strategies, or make predetermined decisions as to how they will conduct themselves in face to face meetings. Players will rush into activities to avoid letting things happen to them.’53 Although there isn’t a video recording of a satisfying playing of the Clocking Game, Barker’s commentaries in his last essay – ‘In Search of the Lost Mode’ – and in transcripts indicate how important it was to him. Way beyond a means of training, it was a vision of a new kind of performance: ‘A vision of a new lyric theatre, in which the dramatic and epic could be subsumed and music, dance and drama intertwined in increasingly new combinations. A thoroughly disciplined and free theatre. Research and practice combined. A lot of work stands between us and this vision, but it’s worth working towards.’54 Barker never stresses the point, but isn’t this a kind of theatre that is generated purely through the movement of actors? It recalls the last sentence of Theatre Games, ‘The actor is the theatre, and the sooner we give it back to him the better.’55 Not only does this game get to the core of theatre, it also reveals basic elements of human dialogue and creativity. Looking at the spontaneous groupings of the players, Barker notes how ‘each has their own thoughts and reflections then it produces a set of stage pictures which, as I said, are often much more interesting than stage choreography’.56 He is interested in the lack of any predictable dramaturgy or choreography: ‘What happens in this game, or rather what happens for me, its attraction for me, is that something is always likely to happen.’57 Barker’s comments about this game are informed by more than movement theory and touch on the ideas of sociologist Erving Goffman and philosopher Martin Buber whose thinking lend a depth to his reflections on human movement and creativity. Barker also cites Keith Johnstone’s classic study of improvisation, Impro. From his 1996 workshop he notes that ‘to be creative must be to be flexible, to be open, to be in relationship with. I think in Keith’s terms, and mine as well, to actually do something between you, to put something between you and the other people is not to be. It may be functional and technical but it is not creative.’58 This reflects Barker’s broader philosophy 106

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of human interaction: that we should try to be open, to be in relationship, with others. There is an unaffected profundity in his warning that to put ‘something between you and the other people is not to be’. This game was a model of how we can be together in society. I shall conclude by returning to the theatrical dimension of a game which he had led ‘with a number of groups in various parts of the world and it never fails to amaze me. [. . .] It stimulates our mind to try and make sense of what is happening there. And this is what holds our attention.’59 One playing he mentioned more than once ‘occurred in a college in Cali in Colombia’. The group consisted of the staff – ‘composers, musicians, painters and sculptors, as well as technicians and other workers’. He concludes: ‘The end was a work of art in its own right because of the interaction of all these people, each of whom had their own inspiration, or aspiration, if you like. We could have put this in a museum of modern art and people would have turned up and watched it.’60 Here, Barker offers us a far richer, more philosophical reflection on theatre games. The rules for this game are rooted in the social, emotional, psychological and creative impulses that make us human. All of this reflected in how and why people move.

Notes 1. Barker, 2003, n.p. 2. Barker, 1995, 101. 3. Ibid. 4. Barker, 2003, n.p. 5. Barker, 2010, 4. 6. Barker, 2003, n.p. 7. Barker, 2010, 4. 8. Ibid., 46. 9. Barker, 2003, n.p. 10. Ibid. 11. Barker, 2010, 57. 12. Professor at Coventry University; studied with Jacques Lecoq and has edited and authored books about movement training for actors. 13. Barker, 1974, 68. 14. Barker, 2003, n.p.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy 15. Barker, 2010, 8. 16. Barker, 2003, n.p. 17. Ibid. 18. Barker, 2010, 17. 19. Ibid., 18. 20. An expert in improvisation and author of Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre (London: Methuen, 1979). 21. The subject of my latest book Rethinking the Actor’s Body: Dialogues with Neuroscience. 22. Barker, 2003, n.p. 23. Barker, 2010, 29. 24. Ibid., 97. 25. Barker, 2010, 100. 26. Barker, 1996, n.p. 27. Barker, 2003, n.p. 28. Barker, 2010, 6. 29. Ibid., 3. 30. Feldenkrais, 1985, 238. 31. Feldenkrais, 1981, 96. 32. Ibid., 7. 33. Barker, 2010, 9. 34. Zinder, 2002, 21. 35. Barker, 1996, n.p. 36. Barker, 2010, 51. 37. Ibid., 63. 38. Ibid., 64. 39. Barker, 1989, 233. 40. Barker, 2003, n.p. 41. Ibid. 42. The International Workshop Festival (1988–2007) was created to provide continuing training opportunities for professionals working in the performing arts. Dick McCaw was Artistic Director from 1993 to 2001, with Barker serving as Chairman of the Board of Directors. 43. Barker, 2003, n.p. 44. Barker, 1996, n.p. 45. Laban, 116–17.

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Bibliography Barker, C., ‘The Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama’, Theatre Quarterly, 4:16, 1974, 55–68. Barker, C., ‘Games in Education and Theatre’, New Theatre Quarterly, 5:19, 1989, 227–35. Barker, C., ‘What Training – for What Theatre?’, New Theatre Quarterly, 11:42, May 1995, 99–108. Barker, C., Transcript of a video recording of a workshop given at the IWF 1996 in September 1996. Barker, C., ‘In Search of the Lost Mode’, New Theatre Quarterly, 17:69, 2002, 10–16. Barker, C., Transcript of an interview with the author, September 2003. Barker, C., Theatre Games, 2nd edn, London: Methuen, 2010. Feldenkrais, M., The Elusive Obvious, Capitola, CA: Meta Publications, 1981. Feldenkrais, M., The Potent Self, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1985. Feldenkrais, M., Embodied Wisdom, ed. Suzanne Beringer, Berkeley, CA: Somatic Resources and North Atlantic Books, 2010. Laban, R., The Mastery of Movement, 2nd edn, London: MacDonald and Evans, 1960. McCaw, D., Rethinking the Actor’s Body: Dialogues with Neuroscience, London: Methuen, 2020. Zinder, D., Body, Voice, Imagination: A Training for the Actor, London: Routledge, 2002.

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CHAPTER 9 ON SUPPLANTING OLIGARCHY: CLIVE BARKER’S DEFIANT ANTI-AUTHORITARIANISM Chris Baldwin

Clive Barker believed that the world, our world, our social world, could be ‘understood’; it could and indeed should be analysed, using rationality and reasoning, and as a consequence be open to change for the good. Clive was an ethical, critical pedagogue who looked to Marxist materialism to inform his thinking and practice. He insisted that his teaching and theatre practice, being both embedded within and a reflection of our social world, could also be understood and thus change and be changed. As a young theatre director these ideas came somewhat as a relief to me. Otherwise, faced with 2,000 years of history, how could a young practitioner have anything to offer to the world or a profession other than to acknowledge and revere the debt owed to all that had come before? In 2002 I asked Clive to write the foreword to a new book on devising. I discussed with him our intentions not to write an instruction manual but to draw together perspectives from professional directors, writers, designers and others on devised and collaborative approaches to making theatre, in the hope that such perspectives might encourage the next generation of practitioners to change and extend their own thinking and making. Clive’s contribution to the book was discreet and humble. Yet on reading it again, almost twenty years later, it is not too strong to say that it provoked fear and reassurance in equal parts. In a sense, he writes, collaborative theatre making has always been with us, and we could more easily try to establish at what point the producer took on the power of the executive, the playwright rose to eminence as proprietary rights were established in the text, and directors were brought in to protect the financial interests of the backers. What has changed, over the last forty years or so, has been a fluctuating activity intending to draw into the creative process all the various talents of those members

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of the theatre ensemble, who have been disenfranchised by the concentration of power of decision in the hands of a few key members . . . it would not be stretching things too far to see this process as attempting to supplant oligarchic, or even dictatorial control by a more democratic way of working.1 Being a man of the theatre and an astute observer of our social world, Clive would have been amongst the first to identify the recent global intensification in concentrations of power and oligarchic expressions in the political, economic, ecological and yes, even artistic realms. In his writing he reminded us that to ensure more democratic ways of working, capable of orchestrating the efforts of the ensemble, we needed to find ways to ‘harmonise the various tensions, and utilize the differing, and often conflicting, contributions into a rich dialectic, rather than a monofocal, blinkered vision’.2 What he suggests here as an aesthetic and pedagogical basis for action clearly has political implications for the social stage too. What would Clive have made of our efforts to create pedagogical and theatre practices which, perhaps through gentle example, attempt to provide mirrored spaces in which we can ‘rehearse’ and strengthen our political social collective, democratic muscles in safe environments? In this chapter I respond to this hypothetical question by discussing ‘citizen-centred dramaturgy’, an approach to making performance with citizens who have an imperative to tell, in the context of the making of The Flow Quartet, a project consisting of four interconnected multidisciplinary performances created as part of the Polish city of Wrocław’s European Capital of Culture (ECoC) 2016 cultural programme. I will briefly discuss how the project enabled citizens and those with historical ties to the city to make four large-scale performance works and in doing so identify collective traumas associated with Wrocław. It is important to describe the scale of the events, rehearsals and processes which were taking place over three years. If theatre and arts practices really do aim to provide those mirrored spaces in which we can ‘rehearse’ our democratic competencies, our abilities to successfully intervene on the social stage, then does not some of such work need to happen at a scale able to influence national, even global political tendencies? This is what I describe as participatory arts processes ‘scaled up’; public, political discourse in public spaces integral to cultural occasions such as national cities of culture programmes or European Capitals of Culture which, often over five or six years, can gain the attention of millions of people as active participants and audience. 112

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The Flow Quartet – Wrocław, European Capital of Culture (Poland), 2016 The Flow Quartet consisted of ‘Mosty’ (‘Bridges’, 17 June 2015), ‘Przebudzenie’ (‘Awakening’, 20 January 2016), ‘Flow’, parts I and II (11 June 2016) and ‘Niebo’ (‘Heaven/Sky’, 16/17 December 2016). Apart from ‘Niebo’, all performances took place outdoors and occupied large parts of the city of Wrocław (population 650,000). Again, apart from ‘Niebo’, these one-day/ night performances involved thousands of performers, hundreds of thousands of spectators on the streets of the city and tens of millions of national and international spectators via TV and internet. ‘Niebo’ involved 100 performers, approximately a hundred musicians and 60 technicians, and was performed to an audience of 4,000 people on each of two consecutive nights (total 8,000). Artists and citizens from six countries, supported by their respective governmental organizations and funding (running into millions of euros), participated in the making and performing of the events. The entire project was curated and directed by me, supported by a professional team of more than a hundred producers, technicians and artists drawn from various disciplines.3 The title The Flow Quartet referred to Wrocław’s river Odra, which flows through the Czech Republic and into Poland and Germany, forming 187 kilometres of the border between these two countries since the Yalta Agreement in 1945. Wrocław is a city dominated by the Odra and is built on twelve islands connected by 112 bridges. Before World War II there were as many as 303 bridges and footbridges. The city is therefore defined as much by the ebbing and flowing of its history as by the current of its waters.

Collective trauma, democracies and citizen-centred dramaturgy In many European post-authoritarian countries, such as Poland and Spain, examples of collective trauma are widespread, intergenerational and endemic – the result of war, ethnic cleansing and systematically applied political and cultural strategies sustained over years and decades. What is more, the existence of collective trauma within a society has been actively appropriated, promulgated even, as part of the process of mourning, sometimes to favour particular contemporary political actions and outcomes. In such cases, official, state-regulated approaches to the teaching of history, 113

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the development of memory laws and even the development of particular cultural practices can directly lead both to contemporary political consequences, even the rise of demagogues and the loss of belief in the transformative power of democratic models, and secondary traumatizations of whole groups or populations. Manifestations of collective trauma are sustained and passed across generations, impacting upon contemporary political and social decision-making. Such examples of collective trauma have been shown to play a key role in group identity formation. Poland is such a place. Wrocław is such a city. It is clearly relevant to examine how Wrocław and its experiences of collective traumas impacted upon the development of the dramaturgy of The Flow Quartet, and how the project itself created a social forum in which the impact collective trauma had on individuals and the city could be examined. To unpick some of this we need to acknowledge an intrinsic knottiness about the theme. Looking only to theatre and performance theory does not fully respond to the complexity of the questions we are raising here. And it helps to weave together three strands of thinking: trauma and psychoanalytical theory, Brecht and dramaturgical theory, and finally, the practices of history, memory studies and public narratives. I talk about this in much more detail elsewhere but for this chapter a few sentences must suffice.4 Cathy Caruth sees traumatic experience not as a pathology of falsehood or displacement of meaning but ‘of history itself’. In this respect she offers a definition of historical practice which pushes at the boundaries of historiography. She also roots psychoanalytic practice in a very concrete context – useful when attempting to understand both Wrocław and Poland and the work we were attempting to carry out through the making of The Flow Quartet.5 Brecht’s dramaturgical recalibration of the notion of audience and fascination with working with nonprofessionals was rooted in his practice from the early 1930s. As with citizencentred dramaturgy, he was making the case for rehearsal as an auto-referential and auto-pedagogic act. For Brecht, both rehearsal and dramaturgy, as in citizen-centred dramaturgy, can be described as applied political philosophy in action. In many respects Augusto Boal articulated the links between Brecht’s practice and what I have described as citizen-centred dramaturgy, through his examples of how the human body is both keeper of lived experience of oppression and trauma and a tool for liberation. What would Clive Barker and Boal, who died in 2009, have made of rehearsals in Wrocław – especially when thousands of people were active in the making of the dramaturgy?6 The history of Wrocław, Poland and the twentieth century was woven into the very fabric of The Flow Quartet. The attempted annihilation of the 114

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country, the attempted destruction of its peoples, the resetting of borders, decades-long occupations and fourteen years in the EU, all add up to a reality in which The Flow Quartet was born, delivered and received. While countries in both the east and west of Europe have memory laws which legally restrict or define description or definitions of historical events, a number of Eastern European state memory laws differ from their Western counterparts. In Poland, Hungary and Russia, for example, legislation of the past is often used to give the force of law to narratives centred on the nation state. In Western European states, supported often by the EU, the goal of such laws is to promote ‘a common European memory focused on the memory of the Holocaust as a means of integrating Europe, combating racism, and averting the national and ethnic conflicts that national narratives are likely to stimulate’.7 It is relevant to mention here that the Polish Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Institute for National Remembrance) was established in 1998 and describes itself as the ‘Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation’. The senior directorial team is chosen by the Sejm – the Polish parliament.8 This institution has the functions of state and justice administration, of an archive, an academic institute, an education centre and of a body which conducts vetting proceedings related to the times of communism before 1990. However, recent political events in Poland demonstrate how such laws can be used to perpetuate trauma and for other undemocratic purposes.9 Political theorist Hannah Arendt is being read widely again as our concern in understanding the rise of a new wave of political demagogues across the planet increases. She points out that before any collective trauma occurs the political lie is perpetrated. She distinguishes between ‘the traditional political lie’ and ‘the modern political lie’.10 As Caruth reflects, ‘the public realm in the modern world is not only the place of political action that creates history but also, and centrally, the place of the political lie that denies it . . . Facts are fragile in the political sphere, [Arendt] says, because truth-telling is actually much less political in its nature than the lie’.11 ‘Staying in the (rehearsal) room until knowledge is found’ is a concept I have developed through practice and reflection which posits a political and ethical stance to learning in rehearsal and aesthetic spaces. The concept is rooted in therapeutic practice, radical pedagogy12 and theatre.13 Psychoanalyst Dori Laub raises the question of ‘the imperative to tell’: ‘Survivors did not only need to survive so that they could tell their story, they also needed to tell their story in order to survive. There is in each survivor an imperative need to tell, and thus to come to know one’s own story, unimpeded by ghosts 115

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of the past, against which one has to protect oneself.’14 While Laub is clearly talking about his practice as a psychiatrist, his clear imperative to listen is shared with staying in the rehearsal room until the knowledge is found. Pedagogue Paulo Freire states that ‘the educator’s role is fundamentally to enter into dialogue with the illiterate about concrete situations and simply to offer him the instruments with which he can teach himself to read and write’. Indeed, Freire conceptualizes his approach to pedagogy and curriculum building as dialogical. ‘This teaching cannot be done from top down, but only from inside out, by the illiterate himself, with the collaboration of the educator’. He goes on to describe his mistrust of primers (textbooks) as they ‘end up by donating to the illiterate words and sentences which really should result from his own creative efforts’.15 It is only by staying in the rehearsal room until the knowledge is found with citizen-performers that one can replace an existing script (the theatrical equivalent to a primer) with a new, authentic series of actions and images based on participant experiences of their own reality. Augusto Boal asserts that the first word of the theatrical vocabulary is the human body, the main source of sound and movement: Therefore, to control the means of theatrical production, man must, first of all, control his own body, know his own body, in order to be capable of making it more expressive. Then he will be able to practice theatrical forms through which by stages he frees himself from his condition as spectator and takes on that of actor, in which he ceases to be an object and becomes a subject, is changed from witness into protagonist.16 It is the role of Boal’s joker both to lead the emancipatory process of spectator to actor and to mediate and curate the result of this process (a forum theatre) to a new group of spectators setting out upon the same journey. The joker for Boal, the curator in citizen-centred dramaturgy, thus commits to staying in the room until the knowledge is found.

Poland and Wrocław The history of Poland in the twentieth century is one of rebirth, virtual annihilation and again rebirth; a story of a multi-ethnic nation becoming one of the least ethnically diverse countries in Europe as a result of the atrocities committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes. World War II, the Holocaust and mass deportations removed entire communities from their villages and towns 116

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and left many devoid of their ‘communities of memory’. This was compounded even further by communist rule between 1945 and 1990, which officially prohibited the remembrance of some major traumatic events but used others as unifying elements for national commemoration. German crimes and occupation were commemorated in plaques and statues in almost every Polish city and town yet the loss of the Polish territories in the eastern borderlands could not be discussed until the mid-1950s. What is more, the ‘regained territories’ of Gdańsk, Wrocław and Lower Silesia were given near-mythic status by the post-war Polish authorities even if uncertainty about their long-term status as Polish lands led reconstruction to be much slower than in Warsaw. This complicated event in Polish history became a central metaphor in ‘Niebo’, the December 2016 closing ceremony of the ECoC and the backdrop for a series of contemporary political confrontations between the EU presidency and the government of Poland which played out over the weekend.17 Wrocław had been Breslau until 1945: a German city with a Protestant cathedral in which Protestant music could be heard for 600 years on every religious occasion. A thriving Jewish population was integrated into every aspect of urban life. Yet in the 1932 elections the Nazis received 44 per cent of the votes cast, the third highest total in Germany. In the final few months of 1945, 85 per cent of Breslau was destroyed by war, as much by Nazi destruction as by the Soviet army. The expulsion of Germans from Breslau did not begin in 1945 but in 1933 when the Jews were driven out. However, in the three years after the war, almost the entire German population was expelled from both the city and the region, and uprooted Poles, from the east and other parts of Poland, colonized these lands. It is these complex events, with ramifications stretching across many countries, which became the basis for the development of everything seen in The Flow Quartet.

Citizen-centred dramaturgy Citizen-centred dramaturgy is a conceptual framework directly extended from Teatro de Creación (TdC), both developed by me over three decades of practice and reflection.18 To explicitly define citizen-centred dramaturgy a definition of TdC is first required: Teatro de Creación is the root from which citizen-centred dramaturgy has emerged. Teatro de Creación is an approach to making performance which combines devising techniques, site-specific work and an emphasis on contested social or collective memory. It is designed to be made in a place, be 117

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about that place, its history and problems, and its relationship between place and those with a ‘stake’ in that place – be it local people or diasporas. Therefore, it happens almost anywhere except theatre buildings. The representation of time in the final piece of work reflects the needs of the storytelling and social context (relationship between performer and audience) and not any adherence to linear representations of time. Performances are not readily transferable or sellable. As a result of being made for a specific place they have limited value as a re-sellable commodity. Teatro de Creación abandons concepts such as ‘professional’ and ‘amateur’, although professional and non-professional involvement in the process of performance-making is present. But as co-makers of performative meaning, we consider that the perspectives and stories of people with close attachment to places and spaces determine their importance and dedication to the project. Rehearsals begin without a text and instead with a dialogue about expectations, outcomes, stories and rehearsals, and discussions are framed in performance and artistic languages, using performative and creative tools wherever possible. Long verbal discussions are avoided; so too the predominance of one voice. The work is multi-directional – we celebrate storytelling over and above realism of any form. The nature of rehearsal is dialogical and always dialogical – while using theatrical forms. Rehearsals are seen as opportunities to develop intercultural competencies. Complexity within the rehearsal process is embraced and given shape and expression within the emerging dramaturgy. Teatro de Creación is a way of making performance, a pedagogical approach to both the training of theatre-makers and also to the education of the social being, a way of thinking about citizenship, a way of transcending professional/ non-professional categories, a way of defending the importance of culture as a means by which to reflect on what it means to be human. In 2013, I added four additional key concepts to Teatro de Creación, which led to the term ‘citizencentred dramaturgy’ in preparation for work on The Flow Quartet. The following four key components guided the design, development and artistic trajectory of the four movements of The Flow Quartet.

Citizens The voices and experiences of citizens become the basis from which dramaturgy is generated in a collaborative manner. They are invited to take part as fully fledged performers in the events they co-devise. 118

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The voices and stories, in particular the unspoken and recounted traumas of residents and citizens of Wrocław, were allowed to influence significant performative and dramaturgical decisions. Curatorial decisions were made not to work with professional performers but with those who had stories to tell; ‘citizens’ became ‘principal performers’ and ‘storytellers’. Thousands of citizens were invited to work with a small team of professional artists and many professional technicians to create the four events in which the stories of Wrocław and of the diasporas now living in Germany, Israel, Ukraine and the Czech Republic were paramount. This study uses the phrase ‘citizencentred dramaturgy’ to describe the process and the emphasis on citizens becoming intrinsic to the making process.

Space Research processes, rehearsals, communication strategies, performance outcomes and televised/streaming events are developed using the city as a palimpsest. Inevitably, with Wrocław’s twentieth-century history being the subject of The Flow Quartet, the detection of personal and collective trauma occurred within the physical context of the city. Streets, bridges, rivers, prisons, parks and buildings became meaning-laden ‘spaces’, often denoting an absence left unexplained by historical eras or political choices. Old industrial spaces and factories, adapted to be used as rehearsal spaces for The Flow Quartet, impacted upon the dramaturgy of the events as their histories became known.

Design (sound and visual) All design of sound and staging solutions is to be found from and within the direct surroundings and is developed ‘in dialogue’ with local specific traditions or conditions. Regarding sound design, new music had to be commissioned for all four pieces of The Flow Quartet. Composers from Wrocław and its diasporas were the logical choice given the emphasis we give to the voice of citizens. Composers from Wrocław, the Czech Republic, Israel and Germany were commissioned. 119

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Regarding visual design, each of the twenty-six cultural bridge projects in ‘Mosty’ developed design solutions through a collaborative process curated by me and supported by four assistant directors. This multiplicity of approaches was sustained in ‘Przebudzenie’, the opening ceremony for the European Capital year in 2016 which reached over 17 million viewers on TV and online. In this case a unifying design element in the form of the four ‘spirits’ was added in order to encourage a linear storyline to emerge. Four processions, each some seven kilometres long, passed through the streets of the city. Highly mobile objects and design solutions were required to respond to the fixed architecture of the city (for example trams and their overhead cables) yet create spectacle for tens of thousands of people at any one given moment. This needed to be achieved within the context of the main objective of The Flow Quartet – namely to make major events for the city using the voices and stories of those associated with the city as the dramaturgical base. As the video material demonstrates, four ‘spirits’ were commissioned, designed and built in steel as a result of a French/Polish collaboration. In ‘Flow II’, citizen-centred dramaturgy decreased somewhat, becoming more focused on an extended and curated conversation between four composers. Lighting and video mapping of the old city accompanied the performance and was designed and delivered by a dedicated small professional team.

Dramaturgy As with Teatro de Creación, citizen-centred dramaturgy emphasizes place, its history and problems, and its relationship between place and those with a ‘stake’ in that place – be it local people or diasporas. The representation of time in the final piece of work reflects the needs of the storytelling and social context. Rehearsals begin without a text and instead with a dialogue about expectations, outcomes, stories and rehearsals. The Flow Quartet is an example of an approach to curating which enabled citizens to tell stories and participate in devising over the four projects. The Flow Quartet aimed to place itself at the centre of a conversation about the nature of the city’s identity in contemporary Poland, and that of Poland in contemporary Europe – a conversation very much contested nationally and internationally. The significance of this methodology in the field and the modes in which it can be adapted to different performance contexts are explored below. 120

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Citizen-centred dramaturgy as democratic dialogue The educator with a democratic vision or posture cannot avoid in his teaching praxis insisting on the critical capacity, curiosity and autonomy of the learner.19 Citizen-centred dramaturgy has a democratic vision The curator and citizen-participant are in dialogue with one another in a similar way to the educator and learner articulated by Freire. There is respect for what citizen-participants know. This is very significant in large-scale performance work and European Capital of Culture projects, large-scale events where considerable production and political pressures militate against accountable, transparent and collaborative decision-making. By making the praxis of citizen-centred dramaturgy (citizen, space, design and dramaturgy) visible to both citizen participants and the professional support teams of administrators, technicians and politicians: ●

Critical production decisions can be scrutinized and evaluated with reference to their democratic/participatory intentions

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The power relationships underpinning decision-making between citizen and support teams can be re-evaluated and re-calibrated where appropriate. For example, the constitution of an orchestra can be based on criteria developed through a cultural/political dialogue and not just by taking into consideration highly prescriptive public procurement law.

Ability to use citizen-centred dramaturgy as a diagnostic design tool In large-scale project planning, in which more than one performance outcome is envisaged, citizen-centred dramaturgy can be used as a diagnostic tool to help design consecutive steps. In part one of The Flow Quartet, ‘Mosty’ (‘Bridges’), significant emphasis and respect was placed on the artistic autonomy of participating groups. After the open call successful projects were given support in the form of production and technical guidance but performative decisions were never overruled by the curatorial director team. Despite the open call placing emphasis on the historical nature of Wrocław’s bridges, almost no group responded to the implicit and explicit 121

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invitation to explore the nature of this heritage for contemporary Wrocław and Poland. (It should be stated that almost all of the 130 bridges in Wrocław were built and designed by German architects and engineers, in some instances German Jews, and had been given German names. These were later changed and are now largely forgotten – part of a political process extending from 1945 in which the city and region has been increasingly made less German and more Polish in nature.) By June 2015 it was clear to the curatorial team, led by me, that the absence of acknowledgement of the German heritage of the bridges was either indicative of a reluctance to approach what remained a difficult or delicate subject (the appropriation of the region and city in 1945 by Poland) or pointed towards an absence of a critical consciousness able to conceptualize artistic and symbolic representations of this historical reality. This led to a series of curatorial decisions to structure ‘Przebudzenie’ (‘Awakening’), the second part of The Flow Quartet, six months after ‘Mosty’, in a way which would make it less possible for the contested history of Wrocław to be avoided or downplayed.

Designing playfulness A final reflection is required, perhaps, as this chapter has attempted to suggest that implicit in Clive Barker’s words and practice was a continual nudging and gentle prodding aimed at our ribcages; ‘What,’ he might have asked, ‘is your practice offering which makes us better as collectively minded human beings?’, and, ‘If theatre is better, richer and less wasteful when it is more democratic, can it be used as some kind of rehearsal for a better, richer and less wasteful world?’. So let’s go back a step as a way of concluding. Clive was fascinated with Bakhtin’s book Rabelais and His World. Why? In Rabelais and His World, Bakhtin discusses the carnivalesque (or ‘folkhumour’) a speech-genre which occurs most notably in carnival itself. A carnival is a moment when everything (except probably violence) is permitted and occurs on the border between art and life, and is a kind of life shaped according to a pattern of play. It is usually marked by displays of excess and grotesqueness. It is a type of performance, but this performance is communal, with no boundary between performers and audience. In this respect it has an objective in common with citizen-centred dramaturgy; both create situations in which diverse voices are heard and interact, enabling genuine dialogue; both create the chance for a new perspective and a new 122

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order of things.20 For Bakhtin, the carnival and carnivalesque create an alternative social space, characterized by freedom, equality and abundance. During carnival, rank is abolished and everyone is equal and indiscretions permitted. As Stanley Brandes states, ‘Drunks appear rowdy and disruptive, and their apparent inability to control what they say can be embarrassing and offensive . . . but with uncanny precision, they accuse onlookers of having transgressed this or that moral rule.’21 People are reborn into truly human relations, which were not simply imagined but experienced. And it is this which binds Clive Barker’s work to citizen-centred dramaturgy. When planning and designing any citizen-centred dramaturgy project, neither dramaturgy or visual design approaches are predetermined or predicted. In the case of The Flow Quartet, the ‘playfulness’ of the scenography was decided upon as a result of the specific conditions stemming from conversations with citizen participants over months.22 The Flow Quartet, with its emphasis on disrupting and questioning settled notions of collective memory, needed an approach to visual design and dramaturgy which would support this aim rather than contribute to more settled or homogeneous readings and thus we were keen to encourage both visual and sound designers to be conscious of the disrupting qualities of the carnivalesque. Nevertheless, carnivals have turned into state-controlled parades and this danger was always present in the work in Wrocław. Bakhtin believes that the carnival principle is indestructible. It continues to reappear as the inspiration for areas of life and culture, as in the design solutions in Wrocław and other aspects of citizen-centred dramaturgy. Carnival contains a utopian promise for human emancipation through the free expression of thought and creativity. Both Bakhtin and Clive Barker, the author of Theatre Games, stand for everything that is irreducibly unofficial and unserious, and in the end irrecuperable by authoritarianism.

Notes 1. Clive Barker’s foreword in Baldwin and Bicat, 2002a, 6. 2. Ibid. 3. See www.chrisbaldwin.eu for full details, video materials and credits. 4. Baldwin, C., Citizen Centred Dramaturgy: The Flow Quartet and Poland’s Wroclaw, Routledge (in preparation). 5. See Caruth, 1995; Caruth, 1996; Caruth, 2013; and Caruth, 2014. 6. See Boal, 2002; Boal, 2008; Baldwin and Bicat, 2002a; and Baldwin, 2003. 123

Clive Barker and His Legacy 7. Koposov, 9. 8. Institute of National Remembrance website: https://ipn.gov.pl/en. 9. For Poland, Hungarian and Russian examples of attempts to legislate on the past see Koposov, 10. For Russia, see M. Gessen, The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia (2017) and J. Grabowski, Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland (2013). In September 2016 (three months after ‘Flow’ and three months before ‘Niebo’) Jan Grabowski, Professor of Polish History at Ottowa University, wrote an article about the PiS government in Poland. He highlighted recent attacks against the Polish High Courts, journalists and the press, and changes to laws relating to collective memory and the Holocaust: http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/as-poland-rewrites-its-Holocaust-history-historians-face-prison/. These new laws, already approved by the cabinet, would impose prison terms of up to three years on people ‘who publicly and against the facts, accuse the Polish nation, or the Polish state, [of being] responsible or complicit in Nazi crimes committed by the III German Reich.’ The official response to this article, written by Łukasz Weremiuk, Chargé d’affaires at the Polish Embassy in Ottawa, is striking if not chilling: http://www.macleans.ca/news/world/the-polish-embassy-in-ottawa-respondsto-jan-grabowski/. Some months earlier, in January 2016 (as the first part of The Flow Quartet was performed), Professor Jan Gross, from Princetown University, was also under attack from the same PiS government for presenting evidence of Polish participation in post-war pogroms: http://wyborcza. pl/1,95891,19612362,prof-gross-zasluzyl-na-ten-order.html. It is also fascinating to hear Jan Gross explain how, in the late 1960s, his generation of young Polish historians were ‘interested in how the communists falsified history’: https:// youtu.be/GKYgyLGvzP8. See also J. Gross, Neighbours: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (2001). 10. See Arendt, 1971. 11. Caruth, 2013, 40–1. 12. I am thinking here about Freire, 2001. 13. See Boal, 2006. 14. Laub quoted in Caruth, 2014, 48. 15. Freire, 2005, 78. 16. Boal, 2008, 125–6. Boal’s translator does not attempt to address the ‘unmarked catagories’ of Boal’s gendered language. 17. For general works (in English) on Wrocław and Poland see N. Davies and R. Moorhouse, Microcosm: A Portrait of A Central European City (2003) and N. Davies, God’s Playground (Volumes I and II) (2005). It is worth noting that Davies and Moorhouse’s Microcosm was commissioned by Mayor of Wrocław, Rafał Dutkiewicz and promoter of Wrocław, ECoC 2016. See also A. Applebaum, Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe (2012) and Red Famine: Stalin’s War on the Ukraine (2017), and T. Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010) and Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning (2016), on 124

On Supplanting Oligarchy: Clive Barker’s Defiant Anti-Authoritarianism the Hitler/Stalin policy and legacy in Poland. For more reading on memory studies relating to Poland see Blacker and Etkind, 2013, 173. 18. See www.chrisbaldwin.eu; Baldwin and Bicat, 2002b; Baldwin, 2003; and Assenova and Baldwin, 2010. 19. Freire, 2001, 33. 20. See Introduction in Bakhtin, 2009. 21. Brandes, 1; see also Baldwin, 2008. 22. See www.chrisbaldwin.eu (Projects).

Bibliography Arendt, H., ‘Lying and Politics’, in Crisis of the Republic, New York: Harvest, 1971. Assenova, M. and Baldwin, C., 1989 – Mapping the Northwest Bulgaria: Applied Theatre and the Teaching of Disputed Histories, Sofia: Factory for New Culture, 2010. Available at: http://chrisbaldwin.eu/writing-3/4592383051. Bakhtin, M., Rabelais and His World, trans. H. Iwolsky, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009. Baldwin, C., Stage Directing: A Practical Guide, Ramsbury: Crowood Press, 2003. Baldwin, C., ‘Participatory Arts and the Agile Citizen in Spain’, 2008. Available at http://chrisbaldwin.eu/writing-2/4592344937. Baldwin, C. and Bicat, T. (eds), Devised and Collaborative Theatre, Ramsbury: Crowood Press, 2002a. Baldwin, C. and Bicat, T., Teatro de Creacíon, Madrid: Naque Editora, 2002b. Blacker, U. and Etkind, A., Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe, ed. J. Fedor, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Boal, A., Games for Actors and Non-Actors, London: Routledge, 2002. Boal, A., The Aesthetics of the Oppressed, London: Routledge, 2006. Boal, A., Theatre of the Oppressed, London: Pluto Press, 2008. Brandes, S., Power and Persuasion: Fiestas and Social Control in Rural Mexico, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988. Caruth, C., Trauma: Explorations in Memory, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995. Caruth, C., Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative and History, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. Caruth, C., Literature in the Ashes of History, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. Caruth, C., Listening to Trauma: Conversations with Leaders in the Theory and Catastrophic Experience, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2014. Freire, P., Pedagogy of Freedom: Ethics, Democracy and Civic Courage, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001. Friere, P., Education for Critical Consciousness, London: Continuum Books, 2005. Koposov, N., Memory Laws, Memory Wars: The Politics of the Past in Europe and Russia, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 125

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CHAPTER 10 HACKING THE ARCHIVES: THE 2012 OLYMPIC LEGACY, FUN PALACES AND GAME THEATRE Joseph Dunne-Howrie

Introduction ‘All my life has been a search for community.’1 Clive Barker’s rich and varied career as an actor, writer, director and pedagogue is interwoven amongst a history of radical theatrical experimentation and political activism in the archives at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, the University of East London, the V&A Museum, the Theatre Royal Stratford East, and the British Library. The origins of this alternative theatre movement can be traced back to the cultural impact of socialism in the late nineteenth century. The disenfranchisement of the working class was vividly documented in novels by Margaret Harkness, Robert Tressell and Jack London, whilst eminent figures such as George Bernard Shaw, John Ruskin, William Morris, and H. G. Wells imagined utopian societies engendered by mass democratization. Institutions that were part of this ‘settlement movement’,2 such as Toynbee Hall, the Fabian Society, the Socialist League and the Social Democratic Federation, were set up to ‘provide the sort of social leadership that preindustrial societies had’3 through workers’ education programmes, sporting events and wider cultural activities. The First World War and the Russian Revolution continued to inculcate a new class consciousness in the body politick. The General Strike of 1926 expressed mass dissatisfaction with the elitist, bourgeois and profoundly unrepresentative political establishment in Britain. Class became a pressing political issue in British society as the labour movement went from strength to strength in the early twentieth century, leading to the first Labour government in 1924 and the creation of the welfare state by Clement Attlee’s Labour government in 1945. Notable theatre companies and organizations in this political milieu were the Red Megaphones, the Workers’ Theatre Movement, Unity Theatre and 127

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Theatre of Action (which went on to become Theatre Union in 1936 and later became Theatre Workshop in 1945). This movement continued in the post-war period with the formation of Inter-Action, CAST (Cartoon Archetypal Slogan Theatre), The General Will, Joint Stock, Gay Sweatshop, People Show, Welfare State, 7:84 and Centre 42. These pioneering generations of thinkers and artists considered theatre and political activism to be synonymous. By the 1970s joining a theatre company expressed a commitment to radical democratic social change through mass political participation.4 Theatre was a tool for empowering audiences to create new forms of social organization through artistic experimentation in public spaces. The history of the alternative theatre movement is preserved in the archives, but this history is not over or complete. The past in the twenty-first century ‘is not what it used to be. [Historical memory] used to mark the relation of a community or a nation to its past, but the boundary between past and present used to be stronger and more stable than it appears to be today’.5 The lacunae of archives infuses history with liveness by giving ‘place, order and future to the remainder’ and allows us to ‘consider things, including documents, as reiterations to be acted upon’.6 ‘Archive fever’7 is the desire to know and touch the past, to compose meaning out of life’s assorted fragments so we can learn who we are and imagine who we may become. The archive in the twenty-first century has emerged as ‘a politics of the imagination in which the past has become a place of succour and strength, a kind of home, for the ideas people possess of who they really want to be’.8 Therefore, archival ‘documents are not in opposition to performance, but rather they emerge from and are part of the environment generated by performance. Not only do they require meaning in relation to it, they become a sign for it’.9 I contend that the performance environment includes the political ideologies and exigencies that motivated Clive Barker and his contemporaries to use theatre to reimagine the idea of community in collaboration with audiences. One of the most valuable aspects of the alternative theatre movement’s legacy in the current political climate is to inspire practitioners to collaborate with audiences in making the idea of community perpetually open to reinvention, in order to reimagine what British society could be through theatre; this is particularly necessary at a time when the country is bitterly divided along political, cultural and social lines. In this chapter I frame the archive as a dynamic, live entity within theatre historiography. This critical lens enables me to consider how the archives mentioned above can act as ‘potential evidence for histories yet to be 128

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completed’10 by conceptualizing Barker’s legacy in the future tense. Archival documents are treated as nascent imaginaries of communities that are distinct from the hyper-individualized, mass consumer and market-oriented forms of social organization that have been hegemonic in Britain for four decades. I have written elsewhere that the live medium functions as a mode of ‘archival production’ when documents and audiences’ memories become catalysts for new performance processes and artworks.11 This reconfigures liveness into an experience of distributive co-presence between objects, places, people, times, histories and ideas that stretches over time through archival documents.12 Conversely, the archive becomes a live space when documents are accessed by readers, which enables the information instantiated within them to enter contemporary discourse and consequently creates a method of theatre historiography where ‘live acts and their translation into text are generative iterations of knowledge production’.13 In distinction to the archive’s role within an economic system of mass reproduction where histories of performance are ‘re-written, through the contemporary art market . . . as the performative production of objects, relics and traces of value and desire,’14 liveness in the context of the archive embodies the contemporary theatre ecology, which is ‘prodigiously spread across material and virtual space in a myriad of interconnected systems’.15 ‘Hacking’ is a term widely used in the areas of digital design, games studies and interactive art to denote practical skills in reinventing computer hardware and software and an artistic strategy of material reappropriation. In broader cultural terms, hackers are rebels looking for ways to subvert structures of power and control in the political sphere. In this spirit I hack the historical figure of Clive Barker from the archives into an idea of performative political emancipation from the paradigm of community as it is structured in modern capitalist democracies. Moreover, the rubric of hacking is used in my argumentation to analyse how participatory performances that incorporate technology into their dramaturgies gamify public spaces to embed theatre into everyday life, a mode of performance that expresses the artistic and political imperatives of the alternative theatre movement. Barker’s future-tense legacy is explored in the context of the 2012 Olympic legacy and its impact on East London’s cultural ecology. This perspective is relevant for the following reasons. Firstly, Barker’s membership of Theatre Workshop makes him a significant point of reference in Stratford’s theatre history. His work with Joan Littlewood was an important influence on his praxis in terms of how he came to understand that the basis of an actor’s 129

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work is conditioned by ‘the controlling discipline of the social and economic necessities of life’ that the actor ‘carries around inside’ and ‘applies . . . in a generalised fashion, to new areas of work’, which can inhibit their ability to respond creatively to new dramatic situations and contexts.16 Barker’s work with games as a basis for creative exploration and spontaneity acts as a conceptual point of departure to examine how the Olympic legacy denudes citizens of their right to act as agents of societal change, before the chapter goes on to discuss how the Olympic Village in Stratford is an analogue of future imaginaries of ideal communities. Barker’s contention that the ‘patterns or basic themes of culture should be deducible from the study of play and games and no less from the study of economic, political, religious or familiar institutions’17 provides a critical perspective for analysing how the spectacle of the 2012 Olympics performed a version of Britain’s national identity that failed to represent the power of citizens to continuously participate in reinventing their ideas of home, belonging, nation and identity. Further, games and workshop exercises as actor training tools are the most well-known example of Barker’s praxis, but he passionately believed that teaching should not just occur in institutions or as part of a prescribed curriculum or training programme. The most important task for artists and pedagogues in Barker’s estimation was to share knowledge so communities could establish their own working practices and professional networks. This goal could only be accomplished if teaching and theatre were considered holistic activities responsive to the contemporary sociological conditions that artists worked within. Whilst he was never directly involved in its design or failed implementation, the Fun Palace project Joan Littlewood initiated in the mid-1960s with the architect Cedric Price encapsulates this vision. I consider how Joan Littlewood’s vision for the Fun Palace has been transformed in the archive from an unrealized plan for creating an institution in Stratford which ‘corresponded with the questioning of theatrical and cultural orthodoxies and the progressive sensibility that emerged in [the mid-twentieth century]’18 into archival lacunae that produce models of communities resistant to commercial imperatives of social organization. This acts as a critical framing device to discuss how Littlewood’s goal of utilizing cybernetics to ‘democratise knowledge and engage in knowledge transfer’19 is emulated in the use of digital technology to activate audience participation in my site-specific audio-walk Voices from the Village (2014). Voices from the Village was written as part of my practice research doctoral thesis and explores the implications of the Olympic legacy for the residents who live in Stratford and Hackney Wick (a former industrial estate that 130

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borders the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park), and what effects the legacy might have on the public memory of these sites. Voices from the Village was available to download on voicesfromthevillage.com from 2014 to 2015 and can now be downloaded from the SoundCloud account soundcloud.com/ jdunne-1. The dramaturgy of an audio-walk reveals the invisible political structures that govern regenerated sites using the sonic medium as a perceptual lens to explore the social systems of control present in the Olympic Village. Using Voices from the Village as a case study, I theorize how performance can hack the idea of the Olympic Village as a model for sustainable communities. Finally, I discuss how Barker’s gaming praxis has become part of a crossfertilization of gaming, installation and participatory live artwork using interactive pieces by the East London-based ZU-UK Theatre and Digital Arts company as case studies. I discuss how interactive technologies and sites are incorporated into the dramaturgies of ZU-UK’s Binaural Dinner Date (2017) and #RioFoneHack at TBW (2019) to hack public spaces in sites around Stratford and London’s Docklands area.

The Olympic legacy The 2012 Olympic Games was presented to the public as a kernel for building communities of the future. The opening ceremony ‘presented twenty-first century Britain first and foremost as a land of cultural expertise (particularly in digital developments) and ethnic diversity’.20 Following the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London in 2005, the day after the city was awarded the bid to host the games, the Olympics came to symbolize tolerance, internationalism and modernity and the antithesis to political violence. The former London Mayor Ken Livingstone described London as ‘a beacon of what the world can be’ where children will dream of coming to ‘run faster, jump higher and run farther than anyone has done before’.21 Some years later the Prime Minister, David Cameron, stated that ‘legacy [was] built into the DNA of London 2012’:22 ‘More cohesive and proactive communities would be a genuine legacy from London 2012, which would last for generations and would support the creation of the Big Society. We want to ensure that the Games leave a lasting legacy as the most equality-friendly ever.’23 British politics has radically changed since 2012. Following Brexit, London has become synonymous with an out-of-touch liberal elite, a bastion of internationalism that is inimical to British traditions. London’s 131

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multicultural society is now widely regarded by the Conservative government and the right-wing press as representative of everything wrong with the nation that must be rectified by reducing immigration and injecting nationalist rhetoric about Britain’s superiority into public discourse. Moreover, a decade of austerity has eroded the social fabric of the public realm, perhaps permanently, leaving many people in the capital to lead precarious lives with insecure jobs, high rents and stagnant wages – leading Jen Harvie to conclude that ‘London’s cultural strategies designed for prosperity adversely affect liveability for its most vulnerable citizens’.24 The 2012 Olympic legacy is a benchmark of regeneration projects, which have become commonplace in Britain over the past forty years. Regeneration has become the shorthand for large-scale infrastructure projects designed to redevelop dilapidated urban conurbations. The goal of these projects is to create economic growth by attracting investment from private capital, primarily in the areas of residential property and retail. Much of the economic growth that regeneration projects have created in their local areas has been built on risky property speculation and increases in public debt: ‘Since the 1980s, living on the never-never has been encouraged not only by banks but by both Labour and Tory governments, for whom consumer credit was the easiest way to stimulate growth. Moral and social status, the issue of legitimacy and illegitimacy, become reduced to credit worthiness.’25 The Olympic legacy has materialized as the E20 Village, the Westfield Shopping Centre, and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, which I collectively describe as the Olympic Village. I use the word ‘village’ because it is the favoured term of property developers and estate agents to partition London into hermetically sealed zones of affluence disconnected from the mess and sprawl of the city. [T]his is the architecture of extreme capitalism, which produces a divided landscape of privately owned, disconnected, high security, gated enclaves side by side with enclaves of poverty which remain untouched by the world around them. The stark segregation and highly visible mistrust between people, which together with the undemocratic nature of these new private places, erodes civil society.26 Anna Minton traces the origin of regeneration projects to London’s Docklands. Once the centre of UK trade and heavy industry, the brownfield site by the River Thames is now home to the iconic enterprise zone the Isle of Dogs. The regeneration of the Docklands began during the Big Boom of 132

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the 1980s when nationalized industries were privatized, and the City of London became the driver of economic growth. Margaret Thatcher’s government replaced Britain’s manufacturing centres with ‘a combination of top-down diktat and economic laissez-faire’.27 The privatization of land has now ‘taken root in towns and cities around Britain, changing the physical fabric, the culture and the government of the places we live in’.28 Privatizing land ‘to serve the needs of business has become the standard model for the creation of every new place in towns and cities across the country’.29 The regeneration of East London has not resulted in wealth trickling down but has instead made local communities ‘displaced . . . as property prices ensured new homes remained unaffordable for locals, [they were] forced to move out further east to boroughs like Barking and Dagenham, or deeper into Essex’.30 The 2012 Olympic Games created a legacy built on debt, with ‘£600 million . . . owed to the National Lottery’ and ‘£675 million to the London Development Agency’.31 The economic legacy of the Olympics can be described as a ‘payback legacy’ that ‘concentrates on the disposal of material assets and liabilities – to whom are they bequeathed or sold off and under what conditions – and how debts of various kinds are to be negotiated within a time delimited frame’.32 These economic policies represent an assault on the hopes and aspirations of the alternative theatre movement. The deep cuts to arts funding and local government that Thatcher’s government instituted fragmented the cultural landscape and made large-scale collaboration between artists extremely difficult. The aim of using theatre to ignite the public imagination of a society governed by mass democratic participation in local communities was further diluted by the New Labour government (1997–2010) who rebranded the arts as the cultural industries in order to absorb cultural activities into the business community. Arts organizations were expected to run as small businesses, embracing enterprise and entrepreneurialism. Human capital and intellectual property were cited as key drivers of innovation and growth in the knowledge-based economy. The Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government (2010–15) cut £6 billion from the Arts Council’s grant from the Department for Media, Culture and Sport’s budget. The National Portfolio scheme now sets artistic agendas concordant with pangovernment priorities. New and experimental work is largely funded by the National Lottery and small grants from independent organizations. ‘By simultaneously promoting a culture of philanthropy, Cameron’s government . . . threaten[ed] the independence of arts organisations, requiring them to bend to the priorities of business in order to survive’.33 Questions of identity 133

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rather than class have consequently become the defining issue for the contemporary alternative theatre movement: ‘This current generation of artists tend to commit to political action as individuals within more loosely based collectives, perhaps as a direct result of the ways in which companies’ identities and bodies of work have been co-opted into the capitalist marketplace of the creative industries.’34 Theatre in twenty-first-century British culture is thus valued for its capacity to enhance and affirm extant values of nation, society and community rather than radically hack what these ideas mean for audiences today. Promoting values of inclusion, diversity and widening participation is artificially set against the important artistic qualities of sublimity, beauty, intimacy, experimentation and creative failure in the political sphere. This false dichotomy fails to account for the political language of aesthetics. ‘The personal is the means of experiencing the conceptual, while the conceptual structure is a way of understanding the personal’.35 The new levels of social cohesion and prosperity that London 2012 symbolized now appear crudely fantastical. The ideas of nation and community traditionally defined as that which ‘binds people together through shared temperament, language, history, culture, landscape and so on’36 are unravelling under the forces of globalization. Attempts to stage the essence of British culture in one event failed to perform the experience of being a global citizen whose sense of community is not determined by geographical territory. The real legacy of the Olympics is a diminution of the status afforded to art and cultural events to construct new ways of living. The archive of the alternative theatre movement can help to restore this status by giving contemporary practitioners the conceptual and practical tools to reinvent the idea of community in a globalized world. The site where the Olympic Village now sits, opposite the Theatre Royal Stratford East, was considered a suitable site for building the first Fun Palace. In his personal correspondences housed in the Rose Bruford archive, Barker writes that the Fun Palace responds to a deep social need for public spaces to possess the quality of plasticity in their function and materiality by acting as an incubator of role play, games and make-believe: At the moment, as a society, we seem to be leaving the solution of the problems to chance or else to existing institutions, many of which contain entrenched vested interests opposed to change and development, many totally inadequate to the social needs of the time, many of an important minority interest are presumed capable of adaptation to majority interest.37 134

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The environment where art is experienced needs to be fully adaptive to the contingencies of the cultural ecology of the audience. Whilst the informational environment envisioned by Littlewood was never built, hybrid performance practices that incorporate digital technology into the dramaturgy as an agent of audience participation transform the political exigencies of the Fun Palace as preserved in the archives into a discursive event played out in sites and digital networks. The mobility of this mode of artistic democratic participation emulates the thinking by Barker and his contemporaries that theatre responds most effectively to the present sociological conditions of the audience if institutions are dispensed with and companies committed to touring full time. The leader of CAST, Roland Muldoon, expressed the ambition thus: ‘What we are suggesting is that theatre should go towards people, and not people towards theatre’.38 The affordances of digital technology enable a form of theatrical mobility favoured by the alternative theatre movement. I now go on to discuss how audiences participate in Voices from the Village by hacking imaginaries of future communities in the Olympic Village through producing documents that act ‘as fictions of a reality with a transformative power in them’.39

Hacking the archives The Fun Palace that Joan Littlewood envisaged was a public space functioning as a cultural dialectic between ‘traditional forms of popular entertainment such as the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens and the funfair’, and the ‘impetus between settlement houses that originated in Victorian England, where reformers lived and worked in disadvantaged areas to facilitate social and educational improvement’.40 Creating a space where future forms of social organization can be experimented with through interacting with technology reflects a ‘social impetus [that] is [now] present in the now fashionable themes of lifelong learning, brownfield regeneration and intelligent environments’41 without entrenching political and economic inequalities. The Fun Palace would serve as an immersive informational environment for leisure and educational purposes. Littlewood felt that the automization of society had the potential to multiply the means by which artists could directly communicate with audiences. Art, technology and entertainment would come together to ‘awaken interest and desire and satisfy a demand for knowledge’ using ‘electronic games and machines of language structures to lead to co-operative action’,42 which in a broader sense would allow visitors 135

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to experience ‘how to live in a scientific culture’.43 Littlewood considered it vital that public spaces were designed as interactive systems ‘for encouraging the creative behaviour that is necessary in an automated society’ so ‘that people in a democratic society should know something about high level decision making in order to use their vote’. This system would ‘provide them with knowledge about decision making that could not readily be obtained in real life’.44 We can see the influence of the cybernetic lexicon in Baker’s praxis when he says that the human being is a learning programme.45 In the age of big data, smart objects, pervasive information and the internet of things, the notion of a technologically immersive learning environment is no longer theoretical. Indeed, the consumption and transmission of information through digital technology acts as the infrastructure of modern democratic capitalist societies. But the internet has shifted modern imaginaries of these informational environments from institutions to portals, spaces, fluid structures and discursive events that are sewn into the fabric of everyday life. Furthermore, the surveillance affordances of digital technology conflict with the emancipatory potential Littlewood and Barker envisaged for cybernetics: ‘Rather than CCTV being used as a vehicle for surveillance and control, Littlewood planned to co-opt this technology as a democratising resource for allowing access into other worlds and transmitting an appreciation of the performativity of everyday life.’46 Surveillance today is used to stifle political dissent or antisocial and undesirable behaviour. The social forms of interaction that surveillance technologies engender in public spaces makes their co-optation by artists wishing to utilize them to enhance systems of democratic participation almost impossible. ‘The very software that enables almost incomprehensible invasions of privacy is protected by laws that guard its privacy. This is the new privacy. It is a post-democracy privacy’.47 The pervasive nature of the internet turns all communication technologies into surveillance systems and configures public imaginaries of social interaction into a ‘human simulation of machine learning systems; a confluent hive mind in which each element learns and operates in concert with every other element. In the model of machine confluence, the “freedom” of each individual machine is subordinated to the knowledge of the system as a whole.’48 Regenerated sites such as the Olympic Village inflict the dystopian vision of pervasive systems of surveillance acting as the model for contemporary democratic ideals of community that beget participatory social experimentations, by immersing the public in invisible systems of 136

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informational organization and categorization that are out of their control. When the autonomy of the individual can only be expressed through acts of economic consumption, their natural desire to explore and discover through doing is suppressed. This renders the social function of the 2012 Olympic Games in direct opposition to Barker’s belief that the aim of games is ‘not to produce a multi-potential puppet, since every human being will find new possibilities in his own way by using his own personal resources and overcoming his own resistances’.49 If we turn to Barker’s praxis for inspiration, hacking the social structure of modern communities requires artists to create modes of audience participation not confined to a particular event or institution by using games and gaming dramaturgies as a model for social interaction. Games, here, are defined as systems that emulate the plasticity of the Fun Palace in their capacity to be restructured by players so that they may ‘examine alternative choices and [. . .] work through the consequences of those choices’.50 The informational environment of the Fun Palace diverges from contemporary forms of networked communication through its emphasis on learning through social experimentation. In contrast, communication technologies today function to organize behaviours and social codes within a network of law enforcement operations.51 Terminology from the field of information science can aid in the conceptual development of this mode of audience participation by framing the sites where these structures play out as platforms. ‘ “[A] platform” is a system that can be programmed and therefore customised by outside users, and in that way adapted to countless needs and niches that the platform’s original developers could not possibly have contemplated’.52 By guiding participants around a regenerated site via an audio guide, Voices from the Village structures encounters between the London Legacy Development Corporation’s version of East London’s past and the participant’s present, live experience of this ‘legacy blueprint’.53 Participants are guided through the sites in the first two acts by the Legacy Builder and the 2012 Manager who attempt to inculcate them into the Legacy Project – a new type of citizenry based on the regeneration paradigm. In the third act participants explore what would happen to the communities in the neighbouring Hackney Wick estate if it was regenerated. The audio-walk is designed for one person to experience at any time of day. The open-ended form of this technologically mediated performance echoes Littlewood’s wish to create a mobile and adaptable site that functions as a ‘brain-bank’ where ‘information [is] piped from site to site’.54 137

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The first two acts of Voices from the Village are titled ‘Gateway to the Nation’s Dreams’ and ‘Training for the Next Stage of Regeneration’, respectively. In ‘Gateway to the Nation’s Dreams’, the Legacy Builder describes Stratford as the ‘Old Quarter’ to denote its ruinous state. The rumours of crime and degradation provide titillating anecdotes for the Village’s residents who can comfortably sneer at their neighbours whilst enjoying the fruits of regeneration. The Legacy Builders only have to point to the older buildings across the train tracks to remind the community of the hell they’ve escaped from. In contrast to Stratford, the Olympic Village is the beginning of a new, more prosperous, happy, better time. Legacy Builder You are currently passing through parts of London’s Old Quarter. This is a site that is ripe for building new homes for hard-working families – as long as those families have the money, of course. The empty spaces you see will be gone one day. Eventually, we’ll regenerate all of London, perhaps even the entire country . . . You probably won’t be alive to see it, but if the Legacy Project goes smoothly then your children sure will . . . the E20 residents are always looking ahead, and never look back farther than 2012.55 2012 Manager It’s a jungle beyond the perimeter fences. No one is safe. These people’s lives are nothing more than fights for survival. You’ve seen the news; gangs of teenagers patrolling the streets . . . women prostituting themselves out to their neighbours . . . old people terrorised by children from local estates.56 The Westfield mall not only acts as a portal to this future but is also a training ground for an ideal model of citizenry. Participants shop for appropriate outfits in Westfield during ‘Training for the Next Stage of Regeneration’ to role play their future regenerated selves. Giving participants the task of shopping for clothes acts as a means of deepening their immersion into the Legacy Project; their role as participants in a performance bleeds into their role as consumers in a mega-mall. 2012 Manager You are looking at the future you, the regenerated you, which you could become if you live in the Village. Don’t you look happier, healthier and wealthier? Surely you agree the regenerated you is just better than the present one? This outfit could mark the start of an exciting adventure.57 138

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The act of trying on new clothes to conform to the regenerated community transforms the participant into the archetype of the modern consumer who ‘has become a consumer of illusions’.58 Consumer culture produces an illusory experience of society where the citizen trades their rights of democratic participation for the right to buy limitless products. True, consumer culture has been with us since the Industrial Revolution, but the elision between consumerism and democratic participation is a hallmark of modern democratic capitalism. The neoliberal model of citizenry is distinctive because it allows the modern twenty-first-century citizen to buy products to enhance their freedom. In a direct parallel with Augusto Boal’s forum theatre techniques, Barker was interested in using role play so audiences could ‘participate in the event by changing it’.59 Playing the role of a regenerated citizen in Voices from the Village allows the participant to project an image of themselves into the regenerated community in order to imagine how their lives would change if they became part of the Legacy Project. During the third act, ‘An Exhibited Community’, participants are guided through a time in which Hackney Wick has become a regenerated community. The Documenter character speaks to participants from a dystopian future. He instructs them to take photographs of the site to begin an archive that will make the public aware of what will be lost if the Olympic Legacy is expanded. The juxtaposition between what the participants see in the sites with what the Documenter describes the sites as looking like in his time shifts the participant’s perceptions of what constitutes the past. Documenter Micro-cameras and movement sensors have been installed everywhere . . . Some of the cameras filming you now are already controlled by the Legacy Builders. If I ever manage to hack into their network maybe I’ll find a video of you, listening to me . . . All of the graffiti you can see has been painted over in the future. All those houseboats you can see? All gone. Only marine security and rowing teams are allowed on the canal – it makes the community safer, apparently.60 The Hackney Wick which participants walk through is past in the sense that what they can see – the graffiti, the houseboats, the crumbling factories and warehouses – will not remain in the future as they see it, but will become incorporated into the Olympic Legacy. The Documenter never prescribes what the Wick should become, only that it is vital for participants to begin to 139

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imagine other futures for it so it does not become the site of yet another regeneration project. Documenting sites in Voices from the Village invokes the social impetus of the Fun Palace by constituting a performance of potential democratic participation, via participants contributing their story to a collection of documents that act as nascent versions of democratic communities. Each photograph is evidence of a time and place that in the dramaturgy of Voices from the Village has been largely forgotten, whilst on the Voices from the Village website the photographs constitute an idea of community that is becoming commodified by regeneration. Voices from the Village involves connecting with people in the imaginative and digital realms, and reflects the mode of performative historiography I discussed in the introduction by seeding alternative forms of community in the public imagination. By documenting Hackney Wick, participants contribute to its evolving history and challenge the notion that its future is inevitable by making these documents part of a live experience in a performance.

Hacking public spaces ZU-UK’s practice strives to show that art isn’t far away from working-class communities, and that collaborating with artists in the creation of art can enhance how people relate to themselves and each other in public spaces. Their commitment to ‘mak[ing] art for people who don’t think it’s for them in spaces art does not usually inhabit’61 led the company directors Persis Jadé Maravala and Jorge Lopes Ramos to establish their GAS (Games Art Stratford) Station studio and office in the Gainsborough Learning Centre, an adult education college located in West Ham, one of London’s most economically deprived areas. ZU-UK’s decision to embed themselves in a working-class community resonates with Clive Barker’s resistance to working in venues that are part of the artistic establishment for fear that the institutional constraints would dilute the political impetus of theatre:‘Working inside the establishment is always a contradictory process. The basic compromises necessary to present politically committed work inside an alien system will mute, if not silence, the radicalism of the dramatists’.62 However, he also recognized that the presence of artists could alter ‘the system’ in order ‘to accommodate them’.63 Maravala and Lopes Ramos became alert to the tension between radicalism and inclusion that Barker alludes to when they realized that their immersive show Hotel Medea (2009–12) was only being seen by a predominantly white, 140

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middle-class audience with high levels of disposable income.64 Consciously turning away from producing large-scale immersive spectacles, ZU-UK decided to make work in public spaces as part of a wider strategy for making theatre and art a part of people’s everyday lives. Invoking the philosophy of Michel de Certeau, Alan Read argues that performances in public spaces embody the dialectical relationship between theatre and the everyday through ‘the emergence of others’ stories from other places, through which theatre might elucidate a political claim, a romantic gesture, or a metaphysical meaning’.65 Performing in public spaces where artworks do not usually exist allows people to encounter ZU-UK’s work in a familiar setting, and works as an artistic strategy designed to ameliorate the risk of alienating audiences from the situations ZU-UK are inviting them to participate in. Altering perceptions and experiences of public space is one of the artistic propositions for #RioFoneHack at TBW. ZU-UK hacked Brazilian public phones so participants could interact with voice recordings. The phone rings continuously, allowing any passer-by to experience it if they decide to pick it up. #RioFoneHack was previously installed in the Olympic Village in 2015 where three fictional Brazilian artists interacted with audiences using pulse, motion and voice.66 The latest iteration is in Trinity Buoy Wharf in East London’s Docklands area. The voice at the other end of the phone enhances the participant’s awareness of the space by guiding them through gentle, easy to follow breathing exercises. Their focus is then directed to their immediate surroundings. Interspersed with these instructions are meditations on the history of the site. The Thames has a sense of itself and the Lea has a sense of itself and we are subject to a perhaps wavering sense of self that has to negotiate all the other senses of selves out there in the world – 7.6 billion of them. It’s a struggle sometimes not to be carried away by the tide of another.67 The voice directs the participant’s gaze to the various metamorphoses the city is undergoing, embodied in housing developments, retail parks and business zones produced from regeneration projects. #RioFoneHack at TBW makes participants aware that they are always immersed in stories; as an artistic intervention the piece enhances their awareness of the presence of the ‘unconscious zones of the city’.68 #RioFoneHack at TBW scaffolds artistic relations using the familiar form of a phone to engender intimate and 141

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surprising encounters between participants and public spaces. The experience subverts the spectacle of conventional immersive artworks by effectuating the conditions for the participant to imagine an internal personalized narrative of the sites they are standing in without having to articulate these narratives to another audience. The whole process acts as an analogue for how individuals can become the subject of their own narrative if they are able to experience the sites they live in as palimpsests of other people’s stories. Becoming attuned to these spectral presences hacks the familiar idea of what a community consists of by including the real and the imagined, the living and the dead, in the experience of living in a global city. Rather than making them play a fictitious role where the codes of participation can be so obscure that audiences think they are ‘getting it wrong’, a key principle of ZU-UK’s practice is to create supportive structures where participants are offered opportunities to take risks but are never forced by artists into making decisions that transgress a personal boundary. Binaural Dinner Date is a mixed-reality performance that premiered in Gerry’s Kitchen, a restaurant named after the theatre manager Gerry Raffles opposite the Theatre Royal Stratford East, in the summer of 2017. The dramaturgy is based on gaming structures where audiences participate according to a set of easy to understand yet sometimes challenging rules. When participants arrive at Binaural Dinner Date they are greeted by a Hostess who tells them to put their headphones on and await further instructions. This initial greeting explicitly states the expectations of the artists. This is a crucial step in making the contract between artists and audiences as clear as possible for participants to feel comfortable in the dating reality ZU-UK create. Participants are guided through tasks and games by the live actors and by a voice speaking to them through the headphones. The binaural technology creates an intimate sonic universe for each couple to share secrets and play out fantasies of who they are and what they might become. This game-based dramaturgy emulates the effect Barker’s gaming praxis aims to achieve in that it ‘provides a situation where the student [or the participant] can find things out for him or herself rather than trying to reproduce a formula given by the teacher [or the artist]’.69

Conclusion ‘The dream isn’t dead. The dream of theatre being a community, a family, dies hard’.70 142

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In this chapter I have discussed Clive Barker’s legacy using a critical framing of performance historiography where archival documents are treated as materials that generate theatrical experiments with digital technology and audience participation in public spaces. This is an apposite approach for considering the legacy of the alternative theatre movement because the idea of community should always be open to reinvention, just as the knowledge that archives preserve continues to inspire future generations of artists to put the audience at the centre of their work. The task of the current generation of practitioners who have picked up the baton of left-wing political and artistic radicalism from the alternative theatre movement is to innovate forms of social organization that are not structured by the individualism of liberalism or the exclusionism of conservatism, if they wish for theatre to help bring about a more equal and just world. Crucially, artists today must develop techniques in developing interdisciplinary collaborations with audiences, which will optimally enable them to rehearse new ways of living that are not stymied by present political realities. This will require artists to take theatre out of the institutions and embed their work in public spaces. Indeed, the idea of ‘the work’ must be hacked to include everyday, ostensibly mundane and inconsequential interactions with the public, who must come to feel that they are valued as critical and creative agents within their cultural ecology.

Notes 1. Barker, 2007, 295. 2. Bew, 55. 3. Ibid., 54. 4. Cartwright, 37. 5. Huyssen, 1. 6. Clarke et al., 11. 7. Derrida, 1995. 8. Steedman, 76. 9. Dekker et al., 66. 10. Clarke et al., 11. 11. Dunne, 2015, 19–20. 12. Ibid., 44. 13. Dunne and Makrzanowska, 5. 143

Clive Barker and His Legacy 14. Clarke et al., 12. 15. Kershaw, 77. 16. Barker, 2010, 2–3. 17. Barker, 1989, 228. 18. Holdsworth, 208. 19. Ibid., 214. 20. Tomlin, 20. 21. Fenwick, 2006. 22. Department for Media, Culture and Sport, 2012, 6. 23. Ibid. 24. Harvie, 114–15. 25. Cohen, 220. 26. Minton, xii. 27. Trilling, 12. 28. Minton, 3. 29. Ibid., 5. 30. Minton, 8. 31. Cohen, 220. 32. Ibid., 220. 33. Harvie, 15. 34. Tomlin, 8. 35. Rebellato, 249. 36. Ibid., 248. 37. Barker, c. 1960. 38. Working Men’s College, c. 1965. 39. Pérez, 88. 40. Holdsworth, 206. 41. Ibid., 232. 42. Barker, c. 1960. 43. Cybernetics Committee, 1965. 44. Ibid. 45. Barker, 2010, 21. 46. Holdsworth, 216. 47. Harding, 141. 48. Zuboff, 20–1.

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Hacking the Archives: The 2012 Olympic Legacy 49. Barker, 2010, xvi–xvii. 50. Barker, 1989, 232. 51. Harding, 134. 52. Pérez, 80. 53. Department for Media, Culture and Sport, 2012, 7. 54. Littlewood, c. 1958. 55. Dunne, 2015, iv. 56. Ibid., xv. 57. Ibid., xvii. 58. Debord, 24. 59. Barker, c. 1960. 60. Dunne, 2015, xxvi. 61. Dunne, 2017. 62. Barker in Cartwright, 37. 63. Ibid. 64. Talking About Immersive Theatre, 2018. 65. Read, 138. 66. ZU-UK Theatre and Digital Arts Company, 2018. 67. ZU-UK, 2019. 68. ZU-UK, 2019. 69. McCaw, xv. 70. Barker, 2007, 298.

Bibliography Barker, C., Letters to Paoli di Leonardus [document], Clive Barker Archive, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, c. 1960. Barker, C., ‘Games in Theatre and Education’, New Theatre Quarterly, 5:19, 1989, 227–35. Barker, C., ‘A Brief History of Clive Barker’, New Theatre Quarterly, 23:4, 2007, 295–303. Barker, C., Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training, London: Methuen, 2010. Bew, J., Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee, London: Riverrun, 2017. Cartwright, A., Political Theatre from 1972 to 1985: From Miners’ Strike to Miners’ Strike [document], University of East London, 1985.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy Clarke, P., Jones, S., Kaye, N. and Linsley, J. (eds), Artists in the Archive: Creative and Curatorial Engagements with Documents of Art and Performance, London and New York: Routledge, 2018. Cohen, P., On the Wrong Side of the Track? East London and the Post Olympics, London: Lawrence & Wishart, 2013. Cybernetics Committee, Fun Palace Cybernetics Committee Meeting at Building Centre 27 January 1965 [document], The British Library, 1965. Debord, G., Society of the Spectacle, London: Rebel Press, 2006. Dekker, A., Giannachi, G. and Van Saaze, V., ‘Expanding Documentation, and Making the Most of “the Cracks in the Wall”’, in T. Sant (ed.), Documenting Performance: The Context and Processes of Digital Curation and Archiving, London: Bloomsbury, 2017, 61–78. Department for Media, Culture and Sport, Plans for the Legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, 2010. Available at https://www.gov.uk/ government/publications/plans-for-the-legacy-from-the-2012-olympic-andparalympic-games (accessed 10 November 2013). Department for Media, Culture and Sport, Beyond 2012: The London Legacy Story, 2012. Available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beyond-2012the-london-2012-legacy-story (accessed 10 November 2013). Derrida, J., ‘Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression’, Diacritics, 25:2, 1995, 9–63. Dunne, J., Regenerating the Live: The Archive as the Genesis of a Performance Practice, Doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, 2015. Dunne, J., ZU-UK’s Directors on Artistic Leadership Post Brexit, 2017. Available at https://www.theatrebubble.com/2017/04/zu-uks-directors-artistic-leadershippost-brexit/ (accessed 17 January 2020). Dunne, J. and Makrzanowska, A., ‘Poor Traces of the Room: The Live Archive at the Library’, Performance Research, 22:1, 2017, 106–14. Fenwick, R., Ken Livingstone: London United, 2006. Available at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=6BSIBPsbL9c (accessed 9 April 2014). Harding, J. M., ‘Outperforming Activism: Reflections on the Demise of the Surveillance Camera Players’, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 11:2, 2015, 131–47. Harvie, J., Fair Play-Art, Performance and Neoliberalism, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Holdsworth, N., Joan Littlewood’s Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Huyssen, A., Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Kershaw, B., Theatre Ecology: Environments and Performance Events, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Littlewood, J. C., What Will I Be? An Enquiry by Joan Littlewood [document], Theatre Royal Stratford East, c. 1958. McCaw, D., ‘About Theatre Games – A Critical Introduction’, in C. Barker, Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training, London: Methuen, 2010. Minton, A., Ground Control: Fear and Happiness in the Twenty-First Century City, London: Penguin, 2012. 146

Hacking the Archives: The 2012 Olympic Legacy Pérez, E., ‘Experiential Documentation in Pervasive Performance: The Democratization of the Archive’, International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 10:1, 2014, 77–90. Read, A., Theatre and Everyday Life: An Ethics of Performance, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2003. Rebellato, D., ‘From the State of the Nation to Globalization: Shifting Political Agendas in Contemporary British Playwriting’, in A Concise Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Drama, N. Holdsworth and M. Luckhurst (eds), Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2008, 245–62. Steedman, C., Dust: The Archive and Cultural History, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. Talking About Immersive Theatre, TAIT Episode 20: Jorge Ramos Lopez [podcast], 2018. Available from: https://soundcloud.com/dr-joanna-bucknall/tait-episode20-jorge-ramos-lopez (accessed 24 January 2020). Tomlin, L., British Theatre Companies: 1995–2014: Mind the Gap, Kneehigh Theatre, Suspect Culture, Stan’s Cafe, Blast Theory, Punchdrunk (Vol. 3), London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2015. Trilling, D., Bloody Nasty People: The Rise of Britain’s Far Right, London: Verso, 2012. Working Men’s College, WMC Prospectus 1965–1966 [document], V&A Museum, c. 1965. Zuboff, S., The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, London: Profile Books, 2019. ZU-UK, Binaural Dinner Date [theatre], London: Gerry’s Kitchen, 2017. ZU-UK, #RioFoneHack at TBW [installation], London: Trinity Buoy Wharf, 2019. ZU-UK Theatre and Digital Arts Company, RioFoneHack at TBW. London: Will Brady, 2018. Available from: https://zu-uk.com/project/riofonehack-at-tbw/ (accessed 24 January 2020).

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CHAPTER 11 AN EVENING WITH CLIVE BARKER : AN EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A UNIQUE EVENT Edited by Paul Fryer

On 24 October 2003, as part of a celebratory weekend, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance hosted An Evening with Clive Barker, introduced by vice-principal Professor Anthony Hozier and chaired by Chris Baldwin. The event was videotaped by Phil Wigley, and an edited transcript was made by Belinda Hoare. This gives us a wonderful opportunity to hear Clive talking about aspects of his life, his work, his interests and his opinions in his own words. Anthony Hozier’s introduction placed the event in context: Clive’s association with the college firstly began as an examiner, an external examiner. He was given a visiting Professorship at the college and has been more closely associated since then. And some years ago, he was given a Senior Research Fellowship . . . and together with Simon Trussler we have developed another association with NTQ , New Theatre Quarterly. So, it’s become an ongoing span of the family. Some years ago, Clive indicated to us that he wanted to bring his archive to the college. And it has been coming in small loads, in the back of his car and in college vans, and I went on a trip recently and was quite overwhelmed by the packing. So, it’s been accumulating in our new learning resources centre . . . This in some ways is a launch for raising some funds to archive the collection because it’s quite overwhelming. There are various letters, bus tickets . . . photographs, endless correspondence associated with Clive’s work over the years and it’s a feast of material, but for a cataloguer, an archivist, it’s an enormous job. So, tonight we’ll have some ventures into this . . .

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Chris Baldwin (CB) . . . what we’re going to do tonight is investigate a little bit about this archive in this three-dimensional game. Underneath the white sheets I have chosen various objects, and most of them are objects. Just remember that there are 700 books from Clive’s archive that are in the library . . . I haven’t included those, neither have I included books that Clive has written. They are there for another day. These have a slightly more, perhaps theatrical potential or perhaps visual potential which I thought might be fun this evening. So, the idea really, Clive, is that friends and colleagues from the audience will elect to reveal the objects from under here. Now, we all ought to know as well that Clive has no idea what’s underneath these sheets. Therefore, the risks are quite high! And if he mutters or starts to speak quite quietly it’s because he hasn’t got a clue what it is and we have to provoke him by reminding him. The other thing to say is that what we’re trying to do here is to create an ongoing narrative, an ongoing aural history of the theatre that Clive has been involved in during his long and distinguished career – so as an archivist, as a person who’s kept everything from posters to detailed notes on various trends of the theatre – and Clive wants to stress the same thing, this isn’t a one-way dialogue, it’s not something where Clive intends to just speak about you or what’s under these sheets. If people have their own recollections, their

Figure 6 Clive interviewed on stage by Chris Baldwin, An Evening with Clive Barker, Rose Bruford College (2003). Reproduced by permission of Phil Wigley. 150

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own memories, or it sparks off a connection with something which you wish to draw out, then please do, that’s the really important thing to remember. Please feel free to ask questions, but also to throw in your own memories, your own connections, your own professional experiences of the issues, the ideas, the histories that are raised this evening. Clive Barker (Clive) Let me say something first before we . . . There are one or two things I want to make clear. Several years ago, in return for a big favour a colleague had done for me, I did some workshops in Littledale . . . in the West Riding of Yorkshire which is a very beautiful place which my father loved very dearly and the colleague of mine was trying to reconstruct a barn and start a Youth Theatre there. So, in order to help her raise funds I said I would go up and do a weekend of workshops. Most of the people who turned up for the workshops were as you would expect, from Bradford and Leeds. There was an Afro Caribbean lad and a lass who turned up who had obviously said to their parents that this is respectable, we’re going to spend the weekend together, but they didn’t arrive on the second morning, and they came at lunchtime looking shagged out. And on the last day I set this exercise and the boy collapsed and passed out so if you want a new aphrodisiac to replace Viagra, theatre games is it. The other thing was a rather buxom young lady turned up from Manchester looking very Mediterranean wearing two-inch-high [heels]. And a skirt that barely covered her knickers and I did think at the time, this is a bit odd for a workshop, a games workshop. We’d done about two games and she put her hand up and said ‘I thought I’d come for a weekend of horror, I’ve made a mistake.’ Because on Mastermind that week someone had answered questions on the novels of crime writer Clive Barker. So if anyone’s come thinking they’re going to get an evening of horror then all I can say is what I said to the young woman, stick around and I’ll do my best! [An]other thing – any sensation seekers among you who’ve come in anticipation of the fact that I’d do my world-famous interpretation of a bumblebee in full flight or my impersonation of Nureyev dancing Swan Lake, I’m afraid, those days have gone. I’d also appreciate it if you didn’t pick up this one [points to object covered by a sheet on the floor in front of him] because it looks like it might contain a very thin file marked ‘Clive Barker’s love letters’. Some of the others look fascinating. I’ll leave it to you to decide. CB Well, ladies and gentlemen, who wants to elect to uncover something? Show your hands. 151

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[At this point an audience member indicated one of the covered objects, which CB uncovered] Clive . . . it’s a green box file, I think. As far as I can tell it contains a lot of addresses and some card indexes . . . I’ll look at the other file and see what the first thing is . . . there’s a bulletin, ‘Theatre workers’ movement. Duplicated editor, Charlie Mann’, then it’s got a list of articles from the Workers’ Theatre Movement, December 1932. I know what this is. Workers’ Theatre Movement . . . began in the late 1920s, started with a secretary called H. B. Thomas who’s known as Tom Thomas, in response to much that was happening in the world at that time which was to begin workers’ theatre groups. Inspired by stuff that was happening in Soviet Russia where after the revolution there was the use of drama, theatre to, for a number of causes – one of which was dealing with a proletariat in their terms, who were largely illiterate and therefore propaganda put out in sheets on posters had no effect whatsoever on them, so [the Bolshevik party] tried to find ways of communicating, creating some sense of support and unity among the peasantry. By visual means. There’s a great deal you can find in books on the . . . visual art of that time, and one of the things also was they sent out a train with actors on it, who would act out scenes from the things that were happening – propaganda to inspire the proletariat support. . . . from this it spread outside Russia, all over . . . The Workers’ Theatre Movement spread. At one time Ewan MacColl assured me that the entire Korean resistance against the Japanese was based upon Workers’ Theatre Groups going around and doing Japanese propaganda in the paddy fields and other places and inspiring political revolution at that point. However, this then took off all over the world and it became what’s variously know as the International Union of Revolutionary Theatre, IURT – it’s known by several names depending what the language is, if it’s French it’s obviously Du Théâtre . . . Internationale and things like that and in Britain it became the Workers’ Theatre, which, as I say, was largely placed in this country through a man called Tom Thomas who ran a group of . . . it was really a drama group in Hackney, just an ordinary drama group which became more and more politicized. And then [it] began to spread to other places, through Tom Thomas and Charlie Mann, and began its own magazine called Red Stage. I don’t know how many, at one point there were forty-eight groups I think working. The disaster came in 1932, when there was an international Olympiad mounted in Moscow, between groups from all over the world. Ah, well, one 152

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should say one thing first, in 1927, in order to celebrate ten years of the Russian Revolution . . . one of these Russian groups came to Berlin . . . and there were other people who were in Berlin at that time who were celebrating the ten years, and this inspired quite worldwide exposure of Workers’ Theatre groups. And in 1932 there was this Olympiad in Moscow at which . . . the actual group that won it were a French group who oddly enough did a play by a surrealist author, which is very strange – but, an English group went . . . because the English group had started all along with a motto of ‘Our theatre or theirs’, therefore they encouraged no professional involvement whatsoever in their work, purely amateur groups. And the standard then was extremely low. One sideline to this was a group in Manchester called The Red Megaphones run by Jim MacMillan . . . was so ashamed by the standard that was presented by the English crew . . . that they actually split and joined with Joan Littlewood and that’s where Theatre Workshop begins. But to go back to the international scene, these groups spread all over; at one point, according to Ewan MacColl, they took over all theatres in Tokyo, before the government cracked down on them and broke them up . . . In Germany they were exceedingly successful, again, which is why I mentioned The Red Megaphones, because they were an imitation of . . . a German group which had a furniture van which used to tour around . . . working-class areas of Berlin . . . and before the police or authorities would turn up, [they] would push off and go somewhere else. MacColl claims to have performed to 20,000 during a strike in Rochdale. This is all very well, but at a certain point, it began to fizzle out – first of all, the weather was inclement and the light doesn’t last that long in the winter so this begins to restrict the numbers of areas in which you can do this work. Also, people began to think what these problems are. The problem in Russia was that the movement was stopped by Stalin in 1928 because he declared that the working-class revolution was over at that point and so he was moving towards involving all classes in the revolution. The Russian Movement was the Blue Blouses, that was the company who had this agitprop stuff which was based on visuals and song and dance and theatrical forms, all of which were politicized – but Stalin stopped it in 1928. But by that time, it had spread all over the Soviet Union and there were groups in factories and towns . . . and they crumbled. In other places of course it kept up because that edict didn’t apply. The Germans kept up, the French kept up, and China, this then was the movement. 153

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Two things happened, towards 1935, one was that Mussolini bombed Abyssinia, and so it became within political terms a question that the opposition now was not so much against class, against the bourgeois, but against fascism, and therefore the groups changed direction completely at that point. The other thing was, people began to think, we can’t stand out in the cold and wet, in winter in the dark and try and do this work, we must move indoors, so at that point [they] began to move into, and work within a club and that’s how Theatre Workshop was born. The same thing’s happened in other parts of England, and London . . . where a number of groups came together and decided to take over a deserted chapel in Mornington Crescent and formed Unity Theatre which became an indoor theatre – so that’s how the movement adapted, at that point transformed itself from being on the streets to being indoors. It didn’t stop at that. It still continued in various places. In one time under Mao, in China they began a group of theatre companies which were going over all of China in the new revolution in political terms, and also they expanded that into literacy programmes and other ways of working with audiences. The Vietnamese struggle against the Americans was largely based on agitprop groups. What was known as agitprop. Hitting and running, getting us into areas inside of Vietnam, then skipping back to base and safety. As was the pattern which had been established throughout. The reason why it’s in that green box, is that when I . . . was a member of staff at Birmingham University I took a group of first-year students to mount a research project in which we were to find all the material that was available at that time, and classify it and put it in that filing cabinet. So that’s why that’s there. CB . . . just in that five [to] ten minutes Clive has outlined a tradition, not just a tradition but really the history of a party, a living, thriving strain of theatre and culture not just here in the UK but across Europe and the world and I would go as far as saying, not only through this box here but through most of what you’re seeing tonight, and through his own life and work, he’s set up and extended that tradition through his own practice as a teacher, director and a writer and also offered a myriad of ways in which many of us who work in the profession will work in this century. Clive What has developed, because you can follow a direct line through there to Augusto Boal . . . not only Boal but to various other people as well. 154

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Question from the audience . . . you presented that box as an academic saying I got my students to research this, but as an actor you were in Joan Littlewood’s performance of Oh What a Lovely War so it may be a short answer, I don’t know, but . . . what’s your personal connection with this? Clive Ah, well this largely came about through periods of politicization in myself. First of all I think the main thing that came was from a man called Len Jones. Len Jones . . . was at Cambridge in the thirties, a working-class man who got a corporate scholarship to Cambridge and when he finally graduated . . . in about 1938, was unemployed and finally in the end went across to the GDR East Germany after the war and began to teach . . . Len did his thesis on the Workers’ Theatre Movement . . . and he sent me a copy of the thesis which someone’s stolen so I no longer have, it’s not in the archive unfortunately, but Len sent me the thesis to read . . . it’s a lovely piece of work . . . I went across and saw Len, stayed with him and talked to him and in the thesis was Tom Thomas of course. Tom Thomas was thrown out of the Workers’ Theatre Movement in 1935 as the party shifted from anti-capitalist to anti-fascist and Tom was living in a flat above a grocery shop in Welwyn Garden City. I went across to Welwyn and met up with [him], I sent him a copy of Len Jones’s thesis and asked him to comment on it, and he corrected certain things, or provided an alternative interpretation . . . so I still have a bunch of tapes recorded with Tom Thomas. Raphael Samuel at one point . . . kept insisting that he wanted to talk to me about this when he was at Ruskin College and he finally called me up on the Tuesday before Christmas and said I can only come up tomorrow or something, can I see this material you’ve got? So, I said OK, I’ll go in and open the university and let you see it, and he saw it and he was knocked out. So, he went away and published material on this. He also included a lot of material that he shouldn’t have published because it was my material that I’d collected and not his. Raphael went on from there and he discovered Charlie Mann who was living in Somerset at that time, so he did a lot of recording with Charlie Mann and other people . . . so we know a lot about what happened. What I was interested in with the students was part of a bigger project. That if I had a group of students working with me for almost a year in which we did practical work, which is the basis of Theatre Games really . . . I wanted to prove that you could do serious academic work with first-year students if you got on the right lines, and they did two projects, one of which was to classify the 155

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Workers’ Theatre Movement, through this material, and the other was to do a major project on the nineteenth-century working-class theatre in Oxford. [An audience member selects another covered item] Clive CB

The love letters . . . This is a CD . . .

Clive The LP of Karl Valentin. Well, there’s not a lot I can say about Karl Valentin. I never saw him actually work. CB

Have you seen any of his work at all?

Clive I’ve seen stuff on film. Karl Valentin was a very big influence on Brecht’s work. He was a clown, a theatre clown not a circus clown . . . there are certain stories in Brecht that Valentin advised him on – the soldiers in Edward II with the white faces and everything. The bits I’ve seen of Valentin are quite marvellous. There is a lovely thing where he’s conducting an orchestra, and at a certain point . . . and he with his baton and the first violin start fencing . . . no he’s a great, great comedian. CB Well, recently in Germany a Karl Valentin DVD pack has been made available and we’ve got it here this evening and I thought we might like to see two or three minutes of a sketch from 1915. For those of you who are interested in these things, Karl Valentin and his partner Liesl Karlstadt who many people will tell you wasn’t his wife, they were partners . . . Clive

Oh God, she’s a great clown.

CB We’re going to see a piece just with Karl Valentin, and it’s called The New Chair . . . [The Karl Valentin DVD is shown] Clive The essence of it is, that he is always in the present tense, he is never, never in the past [he stands to demonstrate] and he’s never in the future . . . It’s the essence of that period of clowning at that time. I mean Chaplin was just as effective, you can see that . . . my favourite Chaplin film was Dog’s Life 156

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when he picks up a mongrel who lives on the streets and there’s a stall with a plate of cakes and fried sausages and Chaplin, with his coat buttoned like that, leans on the counter and right near the plate of cakes, and he picks up a cake and puts it in his mouth like that [he demonstrates] and the bloke turns around, and at that point there’s nothing to be seen so the bloke turns back again, and he keeps on doing this until he’s eaten all the cakes – but the interesting thing to watch is the man who’s frying – I mean Chaplin’s brilliant, the man who’s frying sausages there keeps turning round like that and when Chaplin’s got the cake, he sticks his head forwards and he leaves his body behind. His body is in the present but he’s looking to see, then his body is going straight like that and it’s a marvellous piece of clowning – but it is with Valentin as well . . . he is always there in the present tense. CB . . . Are you suggesting that in the case of the man eating that his head is in the future, that his head moves towards the future? Clive No his head is trying to work out what happened – he buys the sausages then he comes round quick to try and catch Chaplin . . . and the plate is empty and the head goes forward to see what he did then it comes back and he’s absolutely clear in the present again, so he goes back to frying the sausages but his head is always trying to work out, to catch what Chaplin’s doing but he never does. [CB selects a satchel from the items on stage] CB Can I bring it to you? . . . it was full if I remember rightly of books and articles on Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble. I think it was something you carried around Germany, collecting? Clive I’ve had this for years. What it’s got is articles on Teater, the book on German theatre just after the war, and a chapter on Morecambe and Wise . . . . . . should we talk about Brecht or Morecambe and Wise? CB Morecambe and Wise. We’ll probably talk about Brecht later. Did we see the same structure with Morecambe’s performances as we see with Karl Valentin, being in the present, and the head moving to the past? Clive In some ways I think we can. J. B. Priestly had Morecambe and Wise summed up when he said there was nothing new in what [they] did in the 157

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sketches, but the big thing they did was to change the double focus of the two men in that they switched roles around and they played with the audience as well as playing with each other. And this is what he found was the advantage on what the old music hall had done. I liked Morecambe and Wise, I’ve always liked Morecambe and Wise because they have this rapport between them where one plays the stage manager and the other plays the stooge – then they switch round and they can actually do that mid sketch, so where you’re going with one of them is suddenly turned about so you’re sympathizing with the wrong one. And you should be sympathizing with the other one . . . they’re very witty and a friend of mine worked with them on the last series that they did and it’s common knowledge that if you gave the telephone directory to Morecambe and Wise they would get the laughs but it wasn’t her experience at all. She said she worked for five and a half weeks on a half-hour show, and every day for five weeks they worked on every sketch all the way through and she said the amazing thing was, that neither of them moved for the first two weeks. It was only at the end of the second week that one of them got up. And they’d actually done two weeks working on the script, sorting out the script and analysing the script – before the end of two weeks one of them got up and sort of vaguely wandered around with the script in his hand. And then at the end of the third week the other one got up and walked around with the script in his hand. Then they began to rehearse the script and that’s how the piece was put together. So, you know what it’s like . . . you know 90 per cent is hard work and the other is genius. They actually knew exactly what they were doing and technically had it all worked out. CB If we just try to draw together our strands . . . what has already started to appear from the three objects that we’ve uncovered so far – it seems to me that what seems to be appearing is a deep interest, an historical interest in the roots of theatre and alongside that a deep respect, taking on an equal footing an academic interest in popular culture and in politics, would that be right? Clive For me, yes . . . that’s my roots, back beyond musical, but back to an understanding of how theatre worked in the past . . . to go back to the roots of theatre . . . the origins, not in Greek theatre, but to see, the origins in terms of those strands of continuous development of theatre . . . There are certain things that disturb me – it’s very easy to make generalizations. John Arden writing at one point says there was no political theatre in the nineteenth century – it is just not true. A student, a postgraduate student working with me went all the way through the chartered performances and they’re there . . . it’s just not true. 158

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And so it’s things like that, quotes like that . . . there were all sorts of questions which could be asked but had never been asked and answered, so I was interested in finding out and . . . clowns yes, you go back and see the reaction to clowns – that spreads out in other ways as well, you know, because, one of the facets of Shakespeare which has interested me is . . . how much he draws on what we understand as the cross-talk actor. And you know you go to things like the opening scene of Othello between Iago and Rodrigo and he’s a cross-talk actor basically – and if you move it like Morecambe and Wise lots of things come out, between Iago and the audience, that later comes out in the soliloquy and later comes out during the rest of the play. And it’s things like that which interest me. CB But Robert Vine talks about Richard III when Richard III stops talking to the audience . . . and retreats into himself and so on . . . Clive CB

. . .Well, I disagree, but still . . . Any questions for Clive at this stage?

Question from the audience This is probably going to come up later but who do you respect of modern clowns, who are working at the moment? Clive CB

Ronni Ancona. Ronni Ancona?

Clive There’s a lot, I think for me, there’s a lot of sketch clowning that goes on . . . I like The Fast Show and I like the League of Gentlemen . . . [An audience member selects another covered item – it is revealed as a collection of material about Madonna] CB One of the startling, or surprising elements in Clive Barker’s archive is, well let’s not call it an obsession, but let’s call it a substantial element devoted to Madonna. There are cassettes and there are videos, there are academic books devoted to Madonna, photographic books of Madonna nude, and there’s some magazines devoted to her, and there’s some very serious, academic papers, unpublished I believe . . . Clive At a point at the end of my period at the University of Warwick when I was allocated to do a paper on theatre structure, and I thought the 159

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students would be much more interested not to do Ibsen, Strindberg, but to do Madonna . . . Years ago there [was] an old article in Playboy somewhere in which Herb Grier interviewed Peter Brook and asked the question of course which nobody else has ever asked, which was what are you trying to sell to an audience? So I then started with these kids asking what is she selling, what is she putting across, what are we taking in, and once I’d started on that I got very interested in female songwriters and singers, you know, going back to Bessie Smith, and other people, and for several years, this really worked for me. The kids became very interested in it . . . by the fourth year I felt the kids had got fed up with Madonna and they’d passed on . . . I was just interested in what she was selling, what the image implies and the changes to that image. And also the literature she put out, the stories she put out, and the stories other people put out as well and how the city affected the way you responded to performance. Very interesting . . . in the process I fell in love with Janis Joplin, I have a collection of practically every Janis Joplin [recording]. And I’ve seen Janis Joplin live . . . An audience member

How do you rate Madonna as an actress?

Clive . . . not very high, I think she overstates herself in most parts . . . out of herself. She’s a very interesting woman, a fascinating woman. The first one was alright; she’s largely playing herself. She’s a good performer, she has an electric presence . . . she pulls you right in . . . She reinvents herself . . . you might be depressed if she reinvents herself as more respectable . . . [Another covered item is selected] CB We have here, Clive, three boxes . . . this is simply called ‘Africa’. The second one, ‘The Caribbean’, and the third one ‘India’ and I think it said ‘Bangladesh’ . . . Each one of these boxes is crammed with papers, newspaper articles, applications for money, all nevertheless in relation to theatre for development, theatre and development, what else could we call it, community theatre, in each of these countries . . . from People’s Theatre, from revolution, to popular theatre, to reconstruction – a Zambian workshop. I don’t think anything else exists like this in the world. Clive . . . it goes back a long way. It goes back to ED Berman and InterAction, their publishing company at that time, and some papers came out of some work that was being done in Botswana by a man called Ross Kidd. 160

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[He] started off with a group of people working in Botswana because in the north of Botswana there was a big problem . . . of cattle theft. What Ross decided was to get this group together and do some plays or something which would raise opposition to cattle theft . . . then Ross realized a short time after that the only people who were worried about cattle theft were the people who owned cattle. The normal peasants were not in any way concerned with cattle theft because they didn’t own any cattle anyway and were more likely to be involved in stealing cattle than in worrying about other people stealing their cattle. And Ross Kidd, as much as Boal or anyone . . . then began to set up a network of theatre in development in various countries . . . this fascinated me and I actually started to collect this stuff because they wanted me to write a book on it – there’s one big problem with my nature, which is, I read all sorts of things. I read up and think about all sorts of things, but when I’m ready to write it down I’ve lost interest and move on to something else! I’d collected this amazing amount of stuff on literacy programmes – this fascinating movement that goes on, it’s fading now, which is a great pity. I mean Boal’s ideas have taken over to some extent, and I don’t mean to rubbish Boal’s ideas . . . by any means, but there was a lot of other work that was being done that was very interesting, starting with language, starting with teaching literacy in that way and then moved on to politicization . . . I never did the book. . . . There’s all sorts of very interesting things going on – there’s a couple running a company on the outskirts of Delhi in a resettlement camp called Jalan . . . who actually came over here . . . brought over by the Commonwealth Institute so I did get the chance to see them, the only time I’ve ever seen anyone do a play about a pile of shit. They were doing it instead of leaving the pile of shit where it was which is unhealthy anyway – they dried it out under the sun in the end using it as fuel to start a generator, and that provided street lighting in the villages and there were all sorts of things . . . there are so many fascinating ideas which can be taken further which are relevant you know to working in this country as well. Boal’s creamed off part of that, but there were all sorts of other projects that were done . . . all sorts of . . . acts as well, now they’ve issued a warning on this – the Indonesians used to send traditional puppet workers out to the villages with their puppets and then do shows about contraception and birth control . . . the more you start to get into cultural things like that you’re in fact committing cultural genocide, you’re killing off the form by just replacing the content within that form. You know, there is a dialectic here, 161

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because you know Brecht’s idea, when change comes about, either you keep the form and change the content or you keep the content and change the form. And then Bordanami [sic] comes along and says you’ve got to be very careful when you do this, you’ll just kill the culture by changing the content. . . . there is an archive on this material in The Hague. ESCAP [United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific] . . . But there’s all sorts of ways you get into this. You subvert the political intentions, the humans, by interposing reactionary mechanisms on it. When I was in Bangladesh the whole thing had come to a finish there, I talked to a lot of people who had been involved in what was going on . . . they lost the energy to go on fighting without national government support. . . . you look at Nigeria, it all came out of the universities there . . . Where Ross Kidd is now, I have no idea, he went to do a PhD on this in Toronto, but he seems to have disappeared completely, so I’ve completely lost contact with him. A question from the audience Clive, you haven’t talked much about Theatre Workshop . . . I wanted to ask, what do you think ought to be the legacy of the Theatre Workshop story, perhaps not what is the legacy but what ought to be? Clive I think that is very clear, it’s very clear in the old Encore files, in an article by Charles Marowitz, whose practice I deplore but he was a good critic . . . what we want is not more Joan Littlewoods but companies like Theatre Workshop which work on an ensemble principle. And that’s what I would see as Joan’s heritage. I was expecting her to come tonight, I was thinking that if anyone was going to come back from the dead it would be her. But I would have thought the great legacy of Joan is the power of the group. She said she used to work in great detail, but most of the theatre work is sixteen actors realizing the vision of one director whereas in fact what she wanted was seventeen people’s imagination working together, and I think that’s what she left us, the power of the collective. I mean, she left us all sorts of things, but that maybe is the main thing, and that’s Marowitz’s summing up which I think is quite accurate. And that’s deplorable in this country, because what’s gone on in the last twenty-five years is a cutting down of the possibilities of those ensembles arising by a lack of consistent funding – companies have been squeezed out, or . . . have been made to conform. I just think it was a great luxury that we could be critical of Pip Simmons, we lost Pip Simmons, it was a tragedy . . .

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CB

Who was Pip Simmons?

Clive Pip Simmons was a theatre group – they were more interested in making direct contact with the audience than they were in presenting stuff to the audience but they . . . got most of their money working in Holland, or somewhere like that, or Scandinavia – and then at a certain point the Arts Council said they had to do a number of performances, and all their work was spontaneously worked up . . . and they couldn’t, or they wouldn’t accept that quota of performances that they had to give and they retired first of all to the continent and then they left, it’s terrible. They split up the same time that the Arts Council killed 7:84, and I think to have lost those two companies, particularly, you know . . . what an enormous loss that is. . . . 7:84 because [they] did good political theatre, [they] did politics and . . . good theatre that was well worth watching. There was a very interesting quote from Roland Rees in Cathy Itzin’s book on the theatre and the revolution in which she interviewed Roland talking about the first thing that the company did – what was it called, Foco Novo – which they did it in an old factory in Kentish Town . . . It was a takeoff of a film, you know, but it was very exciting because they had a big car and lit the whole thing from the lights of a car and they had a corrugated tin roof on the building and people ran over it, and you heard the noise of them running over the roof, the noise of the iron and the fire escape outside. And after she’s done this long interview with Roland Rees, Cathy Itzin says, ‘You know what else you want to say?’, and he said ‘Well, we never worked that way again. After that we got funded and we moved into performance spaces and theatres after that,’ and you think, God, when all the rest of the world is moving into alternative performance spaces and alternative performance forms, we went back into theatre forms and what we missed, or lost by doing that . . . we missed a lot of possible invention – you know . . . what Dario Fo or Barba and the others did by not going back into the theatre but by insisting on different performance spaces, we lost a lot . . . CB Chris asked whether we were going to talk about Littlewood and Theatre Workshop, in fact under there are two boxes which would have provoked more discussion about them. Clive I think the audience could say more about them. Dudley Sutton . . . would you like to say something about them?

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Dudley Sutton I don’t remember, I was pissed. I rely on Clive to remind me what happened . . . Our theatre is cropped by two things, one is funding, you cannot be subversive in the pay of the government, it’s such bullshit. The idea is bullshit. Funding seems to buy all our energy, and to steal it. To rob our theatre of our spirit. Arts Council funding and Lottery funding or any other kind of funding, it always comes at a hellava price. The other thing is this star system – if you don’t have a star you’re screwed. And when I first saw a Theatre Workshop production I was in such despair. I’d been in the air force as a mechanic and I went to the RADA and I was crying in my kitchen, this was in 1955, because all the theatre in London was about the middle class and if they had anybody in the theatre in the working class it was some person in a shop who couldn’t remember the number of the bus to go home, then somebody passed that person and said ‘Don’t worry, we’ll sort it out.’ Then somebody told me to go down to the East End and see a production of The Good Soldier Schweik – and I went down there, and I saw what I had been looking for all my life. And as Clive had said it was a theatre of people who had been working together for so long and in such difficulties, and with no funding, nothing from the outside – and they shared their gestures, they shared their meaning as an organic whole, and that is theatre of the sublime. But to have to go into the theatre in the West End to see some fuck arse who was being paid a fortune to ponce around and everyone else had to serve them. To me, beyond anything tedious. Littlewood always said to me one thing, the definition of a genius was someone who eliminated spirituality. Who was committed to the elimination of their own job. Which is sublime. Thanks. Clive . . . what terrifies me is there is now an advert on television which says, somebody’s closing up a mansion house and it says, where are all our American stars, this year they’re on the stage in London. And I think oh my God, they’re now selling theatre in terms of movie stars. Don’t they have anything else that’s impressive. Occasionally you have – there are small companies growing up who are doing the work, they’re being unsupported, they’re actually going that way. The last time I was in this college a young woman said, ‘Can I ask you some questions?’ and proceeded to put out a whole collection of ideas that I’d been working on the whole time I was in the Bristol Old Vic theatre school. The company settling down in one place, earning their living and 164

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doing whatever work was available at that time, and gradually building themselves into the community . . . and I wasn’t sure whether to say ‘Don’t do it because you’ll only get trampled on,’ or whether to say ‘That’s a wonderful idea.’ The fact that I didn’t make it work doesn’t mean that you won’t. The past is full of really good ideas which should be revitalized again you know – the fact that they didn’t work when they first came up could well mean that they came up at the wrong time, or the people weren’t well enough equipped at that time to make them work, and they should be re-examined and tried over again. CB Clive, you mentioned earlier on in the discussion Augusto Boal, and the questioner over here wants to know what you really think about what’s important, in particular in relation to spectator . . . Audience member Spect-actor. CB Spect-actor, sorry, Spect-actor – that role of a joker mediating between the audience and the actual stage. Clive I still have problems with Boal, principally because whenever I’ve run into [him] he’s never spoken to me. Or, whenever I’ve been, whatever workshop he’s been doing he’s been living somewhere else, so he’s gone back to . . . Audience Member Five-star hotel . . . ? Clive Yes, and I don’t think this sort of equation – let’s do political theatre with Brazilian presidents to let’s do it psychologically – worked with us Europeans. I don’t think we really accept that. I think this theoretical stuff at the beginning of Theatre of the Oppressed is brilliant, I think he’s a great critic. But when you get into it you understand that he doesn’t know very much about actors and he passes stuff off which doesn’t meet up to what we know about processes of acting. The spect-actor, that idea . . . Clive

Declan, what was your experience when you were sent to Ireland?

Declan That was when he insisted upon travelling first class, it was a horrendously expensive five-star hotel. And he was working in Northern Ireland and the Southern Irish disliked the Northern Irish, and the Northern 165

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Irish disliked them. The English were great, everyone disliked them, and I was called over as you know because he said I would even the workshop, too many people were disagreeing. And I thought this was the point, and he bottled out big time – and what was interesting was that Barney Simon as you know had started his work as a health worker, going out into the bush and trying to help black people understand that the hospitals weren’t preserved for the white folk, that you too could come and have your children for example, all because of the child mortality at the time. And having those two men there at the same time, one who accepted [staying] at a bed and breakfast . . . he was the educator was Barney, he let things come out of people. What I found with Boal was that he was this fantastic showman and he retreated to this five-star hotel at the end of the day. There was only one rule to this workshop, I come in here at ten and I go to bed at twelve, there were no rules other than that, so you have some really good examples of practice . . . I would say that Clive himself is a really good example of good practice here – so that’s what happened in Northern Ireland, I poured oil on troubled waters and he agreed to go back into the workshop. Clive

Totally fazed by the political divisions of Northern Ireland.

Declan Yes. Chrissie Poulter Can I just make a point . . . just a couple of points about you and your work, is just that the sort of conversation you’re having about Boal people can easily have about you in relation to some of the references you’ve made today, of who you are as a man and how you live your life. And people have the same relationship with Boal and who he is and how he lives his life. And that was the problem some people had in the north, the fact that he was a white man in the situation, that he was saying the things that he said. And Boal himself says that he had a problem coming to Europe and saying, ‘What’s the problem, why can’t you speak to each other that’s not a problem.’ And came around and as usual saw a way where the work was relevant to people even if he didn’t agree with them, and I think what we’re hearing now is, people who don’t like people staying in their five-star hotels, we’re mixing our personal prejudices about people coming out. What I think is interesting is that your work, like his work, travels and if you take the people and the cultural context away from it, and Boal would say, the minute you let people speak to each other you’ll do this, you’ll start liking them and not liking them. 166

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And if you go back to Joan Littlewood’s ensemble you take how she must have worked to get seven imaginations to be able to coexist in a room, part of that would be to keep the cultural specificity out of the room for a while, while we find a way that works. And he may do that inch by inch by looking at the images and watching people who aren’t speaking while they are reading, but not by people who are giving them. In the same way your work travels Clive, that [we] all like magpies take it and develop our own use of games. We will probably have disagreements with you about aspects of it. And in a sense I would defend Boal in as much as he’s not here and I think what’s interesting for all of us, is the way your work and his work, works – how you manage to get those people to actually take things to pieces and go relate our playfulness, our ability to play within a group etc., use those games and take them within a political, social, theatrical application. Audience member I have a question I’d like to ask, it’s about Clive Barker and theatre games . . . you’re a teacher of theatre, you’ve worked with actors, would you like to say something about that? Clive I’ll take Brechtian terms – we made certain propositions, that’s what Brecht said . . . we made proposals, and I think, in a way, what I’ve done is taken that work and not followed it, but taken it into their own practice then [they] found their own way . . . which is really what I intended, there’s no copyright and people use the work . . . [a] constant condensation to see things at the core – the thing that embarrasses me about theatre games is that there’s all sorts of theatre games and exercises I haven’t done in donkey’s years. Audience member Are you still inventing new ones? Clive No. I’m interested in several things. I’m interested in the last problem of directing, that you can’t ask an actor to play mood. You know that the mood is wrong, but you can’t say to the actor ‘Change the mood.’ So I’m looking at questions connected with jazz using many roles, ways of using music to set scenes. The other thing I’ve got very interested in, largely through watching television, is autism, so I’m doing a certain amount of reading looking at autism . . . looking at it from a different perspective. You know a lot of work, this is normal, this is not normal, but there is a gradation between all of us – we all belong in the same community in a way. Some minds don’t work the way other minds work, but there is a communication gap. It’s not a normal–abnormal gap, it’s a failure to communicate. 167

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Audience member You talked a little bit earlier about being in the present and you mentioned about having a straight spine, when you talk about autism, is that different . . . Clive No cross-over . . . I’m horrified by the fact that I recently tried to tidy up my filing and I opened up two files, one’s marked ‘pending’ and the other’s marked ‘ideas’, with the outlines of five books in them that have never been written . . . I should’ve written them . . . one thing about me retiring . . . is that idleness becomes addictive . . . I’m trying . . . one of my children, the youngest of my children has a damaged brain at birth. In many cases he’s normal in many ways, but his brain is slightly squashed, and he can only partly control his left hand so he can’t write. In every other respect he’s well ahead of his age, except the writing – he can’t write at all. Which would be alright on the continent where the examinations are oral; in this country the examinations have to be handwritten. So, I’m interested in [that], but also my colleague has a wife who has Asperger’s Syndrome as well, I just got interested in . . . Audience member I wanted to tie up different topics we’ve been talking about tonight. The comedy . . . about spectators being involved in the action, and I know Keith Johnstone who’s another huge hero of mine came from a theatre workshop background and then developed game playing and different scenarios with his impro and storytellers, and I just wondered how you felt he had developed his work . . . and how you feel your genres can work together and how you view his sort of theatre games? Clive I’m very fond of Keith and I like his work as well . . . very impressive, the thing is, as Keith does with many things, he sets a path and you have to have a lot of discipline to follow [it]. What he’s doing is talking as much as anything about the discipline not to take the easy way out, not to take the short cut . . . the choices you make and the interaction, and I entirely agree with him. There are certain things – I went and saw a company about two or three weeks ago who were doing improvisatory theatre which appeared to be on Keith’s model, but it wasn’t. What they had was a series of well-rehearsed routines, and what happened was that whatever the audience threw at them they would then provide a link to the routine and I thought no, this is not it. The problem, I saw, when I saw one of his groups work in Vancouver, the problem was that whatever the audience gave them or whatever suggestions they make, they took the comedy one each time . . . when given a choice they always took the comedy one . . . The pair of us once sat in on a discussion . . . 168

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and someone in the audience said ‘Do you think of yourself as a master?’ and I said, ‘Oh no, I think of myself from one image, a John Ford film called Stagecoach.’ Wherever I go, I know I’ll meet people I’ve never seen before and I’m now connecting things that happened. And Keith said ‘That’s exactly how I feel,’ so I thought we’ve both got a lot in common there. CB Can I just make a comment, and I hope Clive you won’t mind me saying this – just to say that the one thing that really struck me tonight was something you said in the café . . . I was a first-year student of Clive’s . . . and Clive used to really put us through our paces. We had a dance teacher but Clive used to kill us in terms of his nine o’clock physical workouts – and through his writing and everything and his whole stuff about the body and physicality . . . I hope you don’t mind me telling people this, but last year Clive had a stroke and couldn’t walk and couldn’t stand, and what you told me in the café out there, going back to the Alexander work, was how you worked for yourself to get your mobility back again. To me that was the teacher I have from my first year who’s not talking about doctors or physiotherapists or anything else but going back to his Alexander to the point where who would know you had a stroke last year, the way you are now, sitting in that chair tonight – so it’s just a personal tribute to Clive, who you were thirty years ago and who you are tonight. Clive In some way I think I’ve got soft. No I haven’t – I’ve balled classes out frequently in recent years . . . fascinating, Anita met up with me a few years ago, she was at Coventry, she said to me, ‘Did you have to make it that hard?’ and I said, ‘Yes, well obviously ’cause you’ve got through it.’ Maybe I’m not tough now, I’m fairly tough . . . I’ve also got patience as well. Someone sat through my classes at Edinburgh University and I had to do an hour and a half and I did three hours and I got them, anyone else would have given up after an hour, but you kept going . . . I’ve got patience . . . CB Clive, thank you very much for everything this evening. Clive, you talked this evening about honing down, doing less and less, but actually what’s going to happen from now on, tomorrow, is opening up, the reverse, what’s happening tomorrow is I think the sequence, lots of people are invited to participate in how your ideas and the ideas of the practitioners who are running those workshops have widened and enriched and taken those ideas in a myriad of ways . . . One other point that strikes me as being 169

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absolutely essential about this evening is this link of two worlds, which are so well integrated they are virtually indistinguishable, performance and research, they go hand in hand, they go together and spur the next enquiry. Thank you, Clive, for allowing us into the world of research. Clive Barker, thank you very much.

Coda Taking a random collection of boxes, covering them with white sheets on a stage and then discovering their contents through banter between Clive and an audience over a couple of hugely enjoyable hours. This was the closest I could imagine as serving for a theatrical metaphor for Clive’s imagination, his approach to teaching and his humanity. Clive was freewheeling, provocative, incorrect and trusting. He trusted himself and others to find meaning and form after the event and from the chaos. That was the artist in him. He meticulously, though chaotically, saved everything. That was the academic in him. While he died more than fifteen years ago his legacy still remains vivid and worth returning to, and perhaps this transcript reminds us of the need not to edit as we work but simply to feel, intuit and act on hunches. The editing can come later. On that night in the Rose Theatre at Rose Bruford College we glimpsed back over fifty years of inquisitive theatre-making from across the globe. And if we realized anything it was that it is the game that counts. Chris Baldwin, February 2021

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CHAPTER 12 NINE LIVES AND COUNTING Chrissie Poulter

Introduction I first heard of Clive Barker in 1972. I was a teenager, going to weekly drama workshops in Leeds, led by Carry Gorney, who set up Interplay Theatre that same year.1 Interplay was modelled on her experience working with ED Berman2 and Interaction,3 in London, so drama games, improvisation and the local outdoors were some of the key ingredients. Some of us from the workshop joined the Interplay street theatre and outdoor summer project – a ‘dramascape’4 – for children, in Armley. Amongst the volunteers that year were drama students from Birmingham University, where Clive was teaching. They sang his praises and encouraged me to apply, which I did. I began my degree there in 1973. My experience of Clive’s approach was short-lived. He left while I was still in the first year. He was a theatre man and brought the intensity expected of an actor training programme to ours. I was not an actor – nor did I want to be. We shared one guiding principle though – playing games, with an ensemble, as the starting point for working with a group. I was, and am, in the community arts stable, first with Interplay and then with Jubilee Theatre & Community Arts, the project four of us, students, set up in 1974, in the newly invented borough of Sandwell in the West Midlands.5 It was my mother’s idea back in 1970 to send teenage-me to drama workshops – to counter what she saw as my anxious, asthmatic home-self. It was my experience of workshops, with Interplay and in class with Clive, which, in turn, led to my preoccupation with guardianship in groupwork and with play as a way to build personal and social confidence. My concern was that play also has the capacity to destroy both. ‘Sure it’s just a game. We’re only messing.’ In Jubilee, I got the chance to develop my own approach and experience – armed with games from Interplay and from Clive. Three years after graduating I was back in the department – teaching this time, leading some of the classes which were Clive’s in 1973. Unlike him, I did not ask students to take flying leaps, or stand on top of pianos before

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falling forward into the arms of waiting classmates, as we had done for him – terrified and exhilarated at the same time.6 Adrenaline rushes were the order of the day, in our day. I did, though, instruct blindfolded students to play tag, as we had with Clive – hunter and hunted, or ‘quarry’ as he more menacingly preferred to say. Over the three months of summer 1979, before starting as a lecturer, I was invited to share some of my community arts experience in Belfast, bringing theatre games and workshop with me, for those wanting to create connection, explore stories and share a stage within and across communities.7 I knew that cultural identity colours what we say and show, what we see and hear, but every new situation demands attention to my own behaviour, so as not to superimpose it as some sort of unconscious protective bubble around myself. As we moved around the city I was faced with the reality of how unrest, disturbance and combat can play themselves out on the body of a place and its people. Puppet shows and face-painting.8 Smiles and laughter. Outside, soldiers walking backwards, watching windows. Open-eyed, broad daylight, hunters and hunted, drama in the landscape. At the heart of Clive’s book Theatre Games is a concern for the human that is the actor. He describes how his own experience of emotional and physical tension, when working with Joan Littlewood and her Theatre Workshop, led directly to his use of children’s games in training and rehearsal.9 Every theatre actor, engaged in the challenge of creating theatre, is also a social actor engaged in the challenge of what theatre processes demand of them on a human and social level. Clive is clear about moving to ‘un-self-consciousness’, via physical training, using children’s games and play, first ‘for release’ and later, with ‘discipline’, for the basis of a training.10 Clive’s focus on developing the actor’s ‘body think’11 is what interests me. I already know how it helps non-actors fast-track some acting skills when wanting to use theatre to tell their stories.12 I can also see how it could be helpful to the intimacy direction actors are receiving now, in the 2020s, for stage and screen scenes – and to those working with them.13 My focus is not on the physical training that is so important to Clive’s approach but I do hold the body to be central – and sacred. In 1987 I published a book of theatre games, Playing the Game.14 It was laid out like a recipe book, written specifically for local people in Belfast who were developing drama workshops for and with young people in their local areas.15 Over the years since then I have learned much more about how the experience of a game can vary, for individuals and the group – bringing fun and/or fear, depending on who is leading or participating, the context in 172

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which it is happening, etcetera. So, thirty years later I published a second edition, included a section on guardianship and put a note – an ‘Alert’ – on every game’s recipe, alerting the reader to possible considerations which might mean the game was suitable or not suitable, in human terms, beyond its theatrical or creative aspects. I also removed all the blindfolds.

Letters to Clive 1. Better late than never Dear Clive, Your one and only letter to me was short and to the point: C.P. C.V. C.B. I knew what you meant: Chrissie Send me your CV Clive What need for six words, when six letters say it all? Same content, more style. It was for your colleagues in Bogotá. You wanted me to take on some of your teaching there. I never did send it, never went to Bogotá. Now you are dead and gone but your legacy lives on. I’ve been asked to write 5,000 words about it. Five Thousand Words! Isn’t there a small boy somewhere with a basket?16 Five lives and two wishes. Cats have nine. Lives. Cat o’ nine tails? Truth be told, that’s my image of you – a boy, hit with a knotted rope, in games your masters bid you play.17 If 5,000 words are too many to be reading right now, here are the crucial ones: In Theatre Games you wrote: Since I am never going to sexually assault an actor in class, why be afraid of it? Most of the emotional insurance policies are taken out 173

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against things which could never happen in the normal course of events, and certainly never within a theatrical context. All fears are precipitated by the projection of imagined results. They may be justified in the world outside, where real actions have real consequences, but the play areas are safe.18 Once upon a time I might have agreed with you. I even wrote a book of drama games myself, assuming it was safe to do so – that all playleaders, professional or otherwise, were automatically guardians and trustworthily so. Time opens eyes – mine certainly. So now, with 2020 vision, I find I disagree with what you have written here and I wonder if you would too – fifty years on from the ‘anything goes’ world of ‘encounter groups, touch therapy groups and the like’.19 ‘The play areas’ may be safe for you but they are not universally so. 2. Horseplay and hugs Dear Clive, Maybe, when people read this, the world will have changed – again – and the handshake will be back, with its best mate the hug. However, right now, in May 2021, we’re over a year into a global pandemic – COVID-19 has kept us in lockdown for most of that time, virtually halted international travel, closed shops, schools, businesses and more. Crucially for my conversations with you – it has closed in-person activity in university drama departments and theatres. Over a year ago, when the pandemic was declared on 11 March 2020, the chief medical advisor in America, Dr Fauci, said he thought no one should shake hands again, ever. A year later and the UK media were headlining the English prime minister’s announcement that we would be allowed to hug each other from 17 May 2021, when ‘social distancing’ rules would be relaxed. The last time I had a hug was a year ago – from my brother, on my birthday. I wanted to talk with you, about ‘horseplay’ – its place in your approach to actor training and groups in general – but it seems unreal and irrelevant to raise my questions about players crawling across the sprawling bodies of their playmates, when the immediate puzzle is how to rehearse intimacy – or anything – whilst keeping apart by a minimum distance of two metres. Beyond that, the challenge for me is how to engage the players in any kind of collaborative physical activity when the ‘room’ is a computer screen and the players each confined to one small square of the many caught in that glass. I usually make much of a handshake at the beginning of a first workshop with a group. If it is an international group, the hug is also discussed. Well 174

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before social distance became a legal health requirement of everybody, some of my students would make it clear that they only ever felt comfortable with a social distance between them and other people – no pandemic required. The handshake is a useful construct, like a perfectly formed sentence. You have to step into each other’s personal space, to be able to touch hands. Physical contact is a close and intimate thing. The handshake, however, does not overstay its welcome, allowing you to part amicably. It has a natural ending, an inbuilt full stop, as you release the hand and step away. If the group is international, we will start to explore greetings in mother tongues other than English. We learn from those in the group whose cultural, or subcultural, greeting of choice, is not a handshake – those whose tradition is to kiss on either cheek the person they are greeting or to put their hands together and bow while saying ‘Namaste’, those whose subcultural greeting might be a high five or one of discomfort at human contact – not wishing to touch another person or be touched. As this conversation, around a seemingly innocent opening, continues, we discover the cultural diversity and richness within the room. There are smiles, as people appreciate being recognised as Other, as a non-handshaker, a non-English speaker, yet all will happily go on to use handshakes and hellos, as those around them become interested in the alternatives, welcoming the hugs and the high fives. That was pre-pandemic. Now my classes are in the world of computer screens. ‘Hello’ becomes the first point of contact each session – typed into the comments or ‘chat’ section of our shared screens. In a way it echoes the handshake. It is a physical engagement – albeit with the keyboard. We lean close, touch the keys to type a greeting, then I count down ‘Three, two, one, send’ and a cascade of hellos tumbles into the ‘room’. We play games, the players adapting old favourites for this new playroom: Zip, you call someone’s name and they have next call. Zap, everyone gets close up to their camera – a chessboard of eyes covers the screen. Zoom, everyone dives out of range of their camera, disappearing from the screen. Laughter, engagement – ‘release’, then back in our seats we get ready to focus. Some will turn their cameras off from time to time – part of the comfort protocol we establish as a group from the start. With camera off you can still listen, but no one will watch if you dance, walk around or lie down to breathe.

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Sensory overload, privacy concerns or simply the need to move – you are still ‘in the room’. With microphones on mute most of the time, people use the available cartoon images – hearts, a raised hand, applause – to stay connected and there are always digital breakout rooms for work in small groups. I miss the sound of all that in the one, live, physical workshop space. It’s been a muted year all round. 3. What makes people happy? Dear Clive, I’m thinking about happiness. You wrote that ‘what makes people happy [. . .] has never been directly demanded by the teaching or rehearsal situation’.20 Did you really think that? I can’t tell if you changed your mind about anything as Theatre Games wasn’t revised, though often reprinted. Five years after you died a reprint was published. Dick McCaw wrote a detailed introduction but nothing in that mentioned any evolving, changing thinking on your part. In case I’ve misunderstood – here’s the full extract: There is a lot of work to be done in finding out what makes people happy. I have done a great deal less work in this area than in most others because the need to carry it out has never been directly demanded by the teaching or rehearsal situation. I set it down here in case someone else wants to explore it.21 Yes please – I’d like to explore it. Augusto Boal’s slogan, when he was campaigning to be elected Vereador in Rio de Janeiro, was Dare To Be Happy! He got elected for four years.22 I still have the campaign sticker – a cartoon of him, drawn in fluorescent pink, carrying the slogan on a placard. If I had to sum up my experience of the people I worked with on drama and arts projects back in Belfast in 1979 and through to the time of the Good Friday Agreement,23 it would be that they dared to be happy. You say you’ll leave happiness for others to write about, but you did write about pleasure. Your case for the playing of games employs pleasure as a tactic to use against pressure. You invite us to hark back to a time of childhood, ‘to a period and process that is associated with pleasure, and often delight, and that was free from anxiety’.24 I can see where you are coming from and maybe your childhood was as rosy as this implies, but I am uneasy claiming 176

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that to be so for others. Not every child associates group play with delightful memories and for some their childhood itself was a period of anxiety. I came across your article ‘When the Kissing Stopped . . . and What Happened Next’,25 the kissing games of the title being those you played within your community as a young person. The section ‘Games for Actors – and Others’ (apart from reminding me of Boal’s book Games for Actors and Non-Actors!)26 expands the point about children’s games: The work I do has developed the use of children’s games as the basis for training actors. In this work, instead of carrying out a strict programme of technical exercises, we appeal to a learning process which is associated with pleasure rather than anxiety. When we can reveal physical inhibitions and blocks, we can use adult powers to overcome them.27 My interest is in the fact that ‘physical inhibitions and blocks’ can reveal personal or social inhibitions and blocks. I want to understand them – not to ‘overcome them’ but to know if our practice needs to change, in order to prevent or heal something. I’m not sure what you mean by ‘adult powers’, by the way, but that can wait, though the phrase sparks other associations. I am minded of an image that has stayed with me for years, from Agatha Christie’s autobiography.28 In one of her childhood memories – out on a pony trek – the guide caught and pinned a butterfly to her hat. She was mortified, traumatized for the dying butterfly and unable to speak, for fear of upsetting the guide, who thought they were giving a gift. Hours later, back home, Agatha still not speaking but in floods of tears, her mother understood, as soon as she saw her. ‘She looked at me thoughtfully for some minutes, then said, “Who put that butterfly in her hat?”’29 Just as in Boal’s Image Theatre,30 the observer, Agatha’s mother, reads the image: ‘You didn’t like it, did you? It was alive and you thought it was being hurt?’31 I’ve never read any accounts of what it feels like to have an observer recognize the heart of one’s own image – though I have experienced it more than once and Agatha’s account rings so true: ‘Oh the glorious relief, the wonderful relief when somebody knows what’s in your mind and tells it to you so that you are at last released from that long bondage of silence.’32 Boal uses the body to create an image, pre-words and post-words, to express feelings, events, thoughts and reflections – a way to connect, stay open to what the ‘reader’/listener/viewer/Other takes and understands. The intention is not to guess the story, but to show what you feel and for the spect-actor33 to say what they see.34 It’s fascinating how one image can 177

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resonate differently for different people. Boal uses image in many ways. I am imagining a Cop-in-the-head35 workshop on Agatha’s butterfly – to give body to the voices in her head, telling her not to upset the man who pinned the butterfly to her hat, ‘How could I hurt his feelings by saying I didn’t like it?’36 I think that is a line many will recognize as one they could so often say themselves, in a variety of situations in life. A student recently opened up further possibilities in my thinking as she described her interest in using drama workshops and games:37 Throughout my life and mental illness, I have turned to the creative arts (drama, music, poetry, dance and art) to express and deal with my complicated emotions as sometimes the words themselves are too hard to find to express the pain or discomfort you are in. Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) [helps] you regulate your emotions, reactions and responses to the world and its obstacles. Through my treatment, education from [university] and future qualification as a Special Needs Assistant (SNA) I hope to work with children in schools and beyond, specifically those who are neurodivergent, by using drama workshops to teach them mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness skills, emotional regulation, and distress tolerance skills in order to proceed into their teenage and adult life with more ease than I and a lot of others had. You write that you’re not interested in applying the work to psychotherapy settings.38 Neither is she: I am aware of multiple theatre companies etc who work with adults, teens and children who are neurodiverse, however I’m not yet familiar with those using drama to deliver specific treatments in a more casual environment than drama therapy, which is why I wish to pursue this career path, eventually creating a new kind of art centre wherein children can come to express their emotions and learn how to deal with them through the arts. She has included games from my book and some of those I learned from you. Something I heard on breakfast radio recently was a eureka moment for me, on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week39 – the opening greeting from a cheery presenter: ‘Hello. As we skip and frolic towards a better and brighter time, after the horrible long lockdown, it’s a very appropriate week to be talking about mental health. Or, if you prefer an older-fashioned term, happiness.’ 178

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Yes – mental health and happiness. You have written a book for actors, student actors and anyone working on theatre productions based on words in a written playscript, but your underlying focus is on human fear of failure – especially in relation to the body – and the anticipated retribution, derision or rejection that follows; on what to do when it happens, and more importantly how to prepare so that it doesn’t. Fight or flight? Neither. As you note, near the end of Theatre Games, ‘Actor training deals with the whole human personality and all the interactive processes, mental, physical and emotional. The same is true, but more crucially so, when one is working in the educational field.’40 It is this which, for me, makes the heart of your work relevant to the social actor in all of us – because, as you say, it is about ‘interactive processes, mental, physical and emotional’. It is about our mental health ‘or, if you prefer an older-fashioned term, happiness’. 4. ‘Concern for the human condition’ Dear Clive, I have four copies of Theatre Games (long story – pandemics, no travel, possessions scattered), each from a different year, including the 2019 reprint of the new edition, which I am using for all the extracts in these letters. Three have glowing reviews on the back cover which say nothing about what is in the book. An earlier reprint doesn’t use reviews but I think the back-cover blurb is much more helpful: It was while working with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop that Clive Barker first became preoccupied with the question: how can an actor bypass the stress which occurs when he is faced with demands outside his previous experience and which he is, as yet, not equipped to cope with. He found the answer in children’s games – where unselfconsciousness can combine perfectly with involvement in imaginary situations, ranging from a simple game of tag to the most complex physical and psychological interaction.41 Let me borrow your question, replacing actor with person, plus changing a pronoun or two if that is OK. The personal politics which led me to avoid he by using s/he for the first edition of my 1987 book Playing the Game now ask me to think again. ‘How can a [person] bypass the stress which occurs when [they are] faced with demands outside [their] previous experience and which [they are], as yet, not equipped to cope with?’ 179

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In fact – let’s get personal about this: ‘How can [I] bypass the stress which occurs when [I am] faced with demands outside [(or inside) my] previous experience and which [I am], as yet, not equipped to cope with?’ When I think about mental health, I think about students over the years and what I have learned from them – those who have invited me to take account of their particular circumstances in how I structure a class, in terms of time, space, preparation, expectations and more. Such circumstances have included anxiety disorders, depression, borderline personality disorder, Asperger’s, autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, dysphasia, dyslexia, chronic fatigue and much more. The current gathering-term is neurodiverse, signalling an otherness to neurotypical.42 You have a whole section in Theatre Games where you list five different ways of ‘taking the pressure off the actor’.43 Did you ever describe it as that to those taking part? Did we know you wanted to do that for us? I don’t remember you ever saying so. For years I thought the back-brain/front-brain stuff was about tricking the body into attempting physical exercise, disguised as playful games – more a question of focus on fun as opposed to the it’sgood-for-you school of stretches and star jumps. In your book you make a point of saying you don’t discuss it: ‘I would never, for instance, expose the basic principles on which the work is based before I started on it. [. . .] It seems the clearest way of explaining it in a book. Many actors who have worked with me will be amazed to read it, since no discussion of it had ever entered our work.’44 And, more specifically about the in-session awareness: If an actor is told in advance what the purpose of an exercise is, this knowledge might push him towards doing the exercise ‘properly’ or ‘well’ or ‘efficiently’ as an end in itself, and this would interfere with the experience and sensations that are encountered in simply ‘trying’ it. His concentration would be on the end result, instead of on the process or means, which would defeat everything I am trying to do. If the games and exercises are to be used, then read the explanation, stow it away at the back of your mind, forget it, see what happens when you try the exercises, and take it from there.45 I wonder how much that perpetuates the power relations inherent in an outdated teacher/student, director/directed tradition? It’s not that I disagree about the problem of ‘concentration [being] on the end result, instead of on the process or means’, but is that not something the actor is used to? The 180

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character doesn’t know what is going to happen next – the actor does, and the actor can invest in the character’s moment-to-moment experience, reliving for us what rehearsal has embedded for them. If we invite the participant in a drama workshop to consider what is ahead, before entering the game/role, does that not give them an opportunity to meet us halfway, awake to the joint project, as opposed to assuming that there is good reason behind a teacher/director’s unexplained instruction and guidance? In my own practice I bring reflection and self-awareness into the conversation with a group right from the beginning, as an accepted and expected part of the experience. If we get into a circle at the outset I might comment on circles – how some of the group are probably feeling energized, for a circle usually means we’re about to do something. Yet others will be feeling apprehensive for the same reason, caused by the potential exposure and high focus from that same circle – ‘everybody’s looking at me’. Since taking the gaze is a prerequisite for a theatre performance, I invite each participant/player to notice their own responses and sensations, the possibility of diverse reactions and experiences co-existing moment to moment in the workshop – to value them and be open to how best we develop from a group into an ensemble, ensuring the safety of all and developing our capacity for powerful, creative, expressive work. You point to a key aspect of ensemble when describing your Theatre of Man experiments: It was also understood that, in the circumstances, the ensemble was the best teaching instrument. The group had to define very clearly the common ground that existed between the members. It became clear early on that no political, religious or philosophic common ground existed between us and that all we did have in common was a concern for the human condition.46 If we expect to support each other because of our ‘concern for the human condition’, then students, actors – people – should be able to trust us enough to share something of their personal circumstances and perceptions, their human condition, to inform the work and ensure the emotional and psychological safety of all involved. How do we encourage that trust? 5. Consensus and consent Dear Clive, I’ve been thinking about consensus, agreement and consent. Did you ever ask us what we needed or thought would be helpful – for working with you, 181

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and each other, in your classes? I don’t recall. Not that anyone else did. I just wondered. I was looking at the contents pages47 of Theatre Games and there’s a whole family of words that make me uneasy – ‘Victim games’ (in the section ‘Category of games’); ‘Breaking down’ and ‘Violence’ (in the section ‘Release of physical inhibitions’). I don’t see these words as living in the world of guided play – they exist and will appear but I’m not convinced we should go looking for them. I already wrote about your use of ‘punishment’ in the game ‘Court of the Holy Dido’ (which also triggers resistance in me) – in the tribute issue New Theatre Quarterly did about you.48 ‘Playing with Pain’49 I called it. I wasn’t going to mention it here but I saw the word in Nadine Holdsworth’s article ‘Spaces To Play’,50 about Joan’s Fun Palace Trust51 and the way projects were developed with young people on reclaimed wasteground sites and later in the Theatre Royal Stratford East – partly to combat antisocial behaviour and so the young people might see themselves ‘as citizens sharing the same social space. This identification led them to hold and respect court-style “mock trials” to interrogate anti-social behaviour and to enact their versions of social justice. Interestingly, Littlewood recalls that “the worst punishment was banishment”.’52 This took me back to 1974, at the end of my first year at Birmingham University, launching into the first summer drama playschemes of our fledgling company Jubilee. We were based indoors, unlike the summer schemes I had been a part of with Interplay. At the beginning of the playscheme we would create a contract with the young people. Their suggestions were written onto a large paper. I would be looking out for three key elements, not minding how they were phrased – just that they were there: – Look after yourself – Look after the others – Look after the materials A great show was made of signing the contract. Some children didn’t want to on the first day but invariably they would come looking for it on the next and ask to sign. As with Interplay, every day started with a theatre games workshop, to generate ideas and fun, and ended with everyone sharing and showing what they had produced – artwork, music and drama. This was also the time for any discussion about the day and a check-in with the contract. We used a ‘talkbrick’ (as my mother later called it when adopting the practice in her infant

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school), any object which could be passed to someone who wished to speak – Carry had called it ‘the conch’, as in Lord of the Flies.53 It made sure that ‘the youngest child has a vote and every child is heard, no matter how small’.54 If some misdemeanour had occurred, for example when two older children walked over the paintings of some younger ones (everything happened on the floor!), it was raised in the end-of-the-day gathering, when the question ‘How was the contract today?’ was asked, at which point the paint-stompers would stand accused. By this time the accusers were usually quite matter of fact. Then, when everyone was asked ‘What should we do about it?’, the emotional energy would rise. Like Joan’s ‘court’ ours would ring with cries of ‘throw them out’ but banishment never actually happened because we would ask about alternatives, e.g. a second chance for the arttramplers. Invariably the youthful majority would relent, alongside very vocal warnings ‘but if they do it again, they’re out’. There’s something to be said for not being the sole go-to arbiter, judge, jury and executioner. Because the young people had created their own contract and because the daily ritual included a gathering and review, the focus was not on us to do anything other than provide structure and moderation. The one-voice approach, made possible with the ‘talk’ object, spared us from raising our voices to quell others – they did it themselves if needed. The focus was on listening and waiting for a turn to talk. There was no court and no mention of punishment. It was more a case of ‘What shall we do about it?’ This comes full circle back to me and student voices now, adults not eight-year-olds. Unlike the children of the 1970s, shouting out their suggestions for our playscheme contract, the students I work with now have long established their own protective shell. They don’t necessarily want to make public announcements about their private demons, so I ask what they want/need to see on the menu for our time together – to stake a claim to their own learning. At the start of a module/project, I get an individual written statement from each person about what they want from the module, what obstacles might stand in their way, what skills and qualities they bring that might help others in the group, plus any personal note to me as to what might make things go better for them. These are for my eyes only, done more as a memo than a formal paper – the emphasis on content not form.55 This is when I find out about neurodiversity, stress, lack of confidence – myriad challenges before they even get into ‘the room’. It is this contemporary diversity that my facilitation must include, working with consensus, their agreement and consent. 183

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6. Boundaries Dear Clive, Victoria Wood’s official biography was published last October. I was expecting it. I’d let them see some of her letters from way back in the 1970s and 1980s. I wasn’t expecting to read about you though. I don’t know why. You were on the staff for all three years of her degree after all. There’s a mention of Vic being interviewed by Clive James where she describes the Birmingham degree ‘as a BA in “groping” for students who “feel each other up with the lights out”.’56 Was that your class? You do say that ‘performed in the dark the exercise gives an opportunity for the group to approach and contact the leader in a safe situation’.57 I wonder, did everyone feel the same? As I write this, drama schools, theatre companies and film directors are being asked to acknowledge and avoid any abuse of power within their training spaces, performance places and rehearsal rooms – to consider the seeking of consent and permissions as opposed to assuming that ‘anything goes’ or that a performer must be able/prepared to act/re-enact all human situations. Once again it is a student in one of my classes58 who puts this into words and deepens my understanding: I would like to start by saying that I’m from Turkey. [. . .] I’ve learned and practiced three different acting theories/systems. Not all worked for me. Most of the time it looked like there was a block in my acting. And, I realized I was nervous to do a scene with a partner. More specifically I felt a fear of doing an intimate scene with another actor. I thought this was about me, I maybe couldn’t understand the theory/ system I am working on at the time or I was just not qualified for this profession. After several conversations with academics and research that I managed to access, I found out that this ‘problem’ of mine is not a problem but a reality for a lot of people. [. . .] Even when an actor in any country could feel these things in their body, I see it through my own point of view. And, my point was definitely shaped by the culture I have grown into. That is why I want to be clear of my identification of being Turkish. [. . .] Ita O’Brien’s59 work in Ireland is related to the things I have been trying to understand and express through all my acting journey. [My] main goal will be finding a solution [to] the block of my acting. And, to be able to narrate this [. . .] thus other actors can benefit from it.

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Alongside the work of Ita O’Brien and other intimacy coaches, there are campaigns to change attitudes and behaviour across the board – such as the Irish Theatre Institute campaign, Speak Up and Call it Out – Dignity in the Workplace.60 The triggers for some of this have been a number of highprofile directors brought to a different sort of limelight over the past couple of years, as abusers and now, for some, as convicted sex offenders, who abused performers working with/for them over a number of years. A worldwide movement, #MeToo,61 has seen more performers and others working in theatre and film call out their own experiences and/or support those who do so. It’s all a far cry from your own reflection on the release of ‘one’s feelings and desires’ through play: The task is not to allow full reign to one’s feelings and desires, but to release them in play situations so that they may be controlled instead of inhibited. [. . .] If one accepts that these feelings are sometimes released by the work and if one refrains from consciously inhibiting them, it is surprising how easy they are to live with and control. Since I am never going to sexually assault an actor in class, why be afraid of it? Most of the emotional insurance policies are taken out against things which could never happen in the normal course of events, and certainly never within a theatrical context. [. . .] the play areas are safe. Control achieved through release in play frequently creates a confidence which can be carried over into real situations in the world outside. Games are a means of education and personality growth.62 You do write about things getting out of hand though, or the potential for that to happen, about staying out of the game – reading the room, ready to step in – but that’s for activities in the dark: ‘I would not carry out this work and take part myself in the early stages. The group can then rely on the security of one person standing outside the activity, as a guarantee that the activity will not get out of hand and lead into areas where they cannot control what is happening.’63 Elsewhere you say you stay out initially but then you participate. Is this something you changed over time? Or is the guardian just for playing in the dark? Here’s what you wrote: ‘Working instinctively, I watch the first game played and the second forms naturally in my mind. It is important that this instinctive response be trusted, and this is only possible if one participates physically in the session’.64 In cricket, a player ‘fielding’ near the boundaries of a cricket pitch ‘participates physically’ in the game. When I’m running a drama workshop, I 185

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see myself as that fielder – trying to remain alert, protecting the boundaries. I don’t join in the activities, though I usually demonstrate how they work as part of each set-up. Like you, I love the alchemy of working with what’s in the room, responding moment by moment, but I’m learning that this goes counter to the well-being strategies of some participants. Those sensitive to certain topics or tactics may protect themselves in advance, either by not turning up or by avoiding full engagement when present, so now I send an outline to the participants, before each session. Much like a relaxed performance in a theatre, I am trying to avoid unnecessary shocks and fear of the unknown. I don’t ask who wants or needs the outline – it goes to everyone. Like a map, in the bag with the sandwiches, it’s a safety net. We’re fine unless we get lost and then we can get out the map and see where we are. 7. The last post Dear Clive, I’m finally going to post these epistles – though I don’t want to. Why am I reticent? Print pins the butterfly. And yet print also widens access to practice. I have no wish to publish fixed ‘facts’ – because epiphanies and experience change what I know and think. I need to revisit examples, extracts and case studies, which have become so familiar over the years of using them that I don’t always spot the aspect which makes them now untenable. For example – a play which I have used for many years as a way of working on ensemble, rhythm and different styles of language woven together, is Robin Glendinning’s Mumbo Jumbo.65 In it, pupils are learning the poem ‘The Congo’ by Vachel Lindsay,66 with its rhythmic chanting, for a performance in school. The playwright has woven in interjections spoken by the teacher. In a later scene we hear a poem occurring to one of the boys as the others continue their rehearsed chanting. Again, the theatrical weaving of tone, rhythm and form made me think it was an excellent vehicle for an acting class. I had not considered how its content might offend and exclude. Including work from the island of Ireland is part of my own personal politics. I was teaching in Dublin; the playwright (who I had met years before when he attended a drama workshop I was leading) was a teacher in a boys’ school in Belfast before turning full-time to playwriting. All seemed fine. Then, a couple of years ago, keen to bring the voices of women into my teaching and to invite students to look further than the performativity of a script, I came across a review by a young woman, challenging the use of this poem in schools because of its colonial approach to the subjects of the poem. 186

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How had that never occurred to me? I had seen the play as a Romeo and Juliet for Belfast – a Spring Awakening, echoing the city at the time I had been there and, since Robin had been a teacher in that very type of school, I didn’t think to question it. As I write this, following the year of the Black Lives Matter campaign67 around the world, yet again I am reminded of pinning the butterfly. I need to stay open to what we learn as we learn about ourselves and each other. A student68 tells me she is tired of waiting: We all need to feel like we are part of something, understood and represented to prove we exist[ed]. So it is only fair to require from theatre to represent ALL people as part of the society. [. . .] People of color should be represented on stage as part of the Irish society, which they are in real life. Those of us who lead educational and artistic programmes need to review our materials constantly. For the past few years, for example, as a result of the campaign Waking the Feminists69 in Dublin (which initially aimed to increase the number of plays written and directed by women in Ireland), I tried to ensure that my teaching references were to women playwrights, theorists, performers, etcetera. Today as I write this, but maybe not the today when it is being read, the binary of male–female has been challenged. Now genderfluidity is centre stage in the arena of our work and our students. The lexicon gives us ‘cis-gendered’ as an adjective, alongside the prefixes ‘bi-‘ and ‘trans-‘. The more established Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual – LGB – extends to become LGBTQ+,70 the + resisting any attempt to place a full stop on other possibilities. The centuries-long campaign for parity of esteem continues. 8. Serendipity Dear Clive, A sure sign that this is ready to wing its way to you and yours, with permission granted to me to step out of the frame – an article in The Guardian newspaper (an aptly named journal given our topic). It was a correction published on 21 May (21.5.21) that caught my eye: ‘to correct the name of the Theatre Royal Stratford East. A previous version of this article referred to it as the Royal Stratford East.’ Might as well have been labelled ‘for Clive and Chrissie’! 187

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The full article, on 20 May, by Jason Okundaye, is about Rikki BeadleBlair’s life in theatre and screen, writing, directing his friends as a child, going to evening classes at the Anna Scher Theatre,71 joining the Old Vic Youth Theatre72 at fifteen and on into a never-ending life and love of making theatre and film. The mention of Theatre Royal Stratford East is because he produced his play Bashment73 there in 2005, with his company, Team Angelica.74 Dealing with homophobia, ‘it was criticised for its happy ending. For Beadle-Blair, this joy is essential in order to ensure that queerness is not just represented as trauma.’ Reading Okundaye’s article is inspiring and echoes so much of what I have been trying to say here. Rikki Beadle-Blair’s words tell me I’m using the right dictionary – mental health, happiness and even butterflies! He tells Okundaye: I’ve come through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, all of that – and I’m happy, I’m integrated, my mental health is strong. The caterpillar has had some time in the cocoon and can now be a butterfly: we can really bring entertaining work that includes everybody – Black voices, working-class voices, older, younger. Everybody up there, instead of what we had before. The pandemic’s been rough, but you know what? It was time for a change.75

9. Postscript Fare Thee Well – Words for a wake when the others leave the room C.B. No C.V. C.P. I’m retired now. Life sentence Death sentence I’m shredding a lot of paper and writing labels As my mother did You and she were born the same year – 1931 Same month – June You the 29th and she the 30th The day before you were born was my dad’s second birthday. Stay well, wherever your shade is shading. 188

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Your star still shines, clearly, here on the blue planet why else would they come looking for legacies? (Clive turns in his grave) ‘There is a lot of work to be done in finding out what makes people happy.’ True . . . Nine lives and counting! Cx

Notes 1. See Gorney, 205–14, for details of this time, the improvisation workshops, the setting up of Interplay, the street theatre and outdoor children’s projects. 2. Ibid., 201, gives a description of ED Berman. 3. Ibid., 200, gives a description of Interaction, of which Barker was a trustee. 4. Dramascape – from ‘drama’ and ‘landscape’. Each one was based on a bombsite/ waste ground, with daily arts activities generated from a games workshop each morning. 5. Jubilee – third-year student Steve Trow invited us to join him in creating theatre in various settings in his hometown of West Bromwich, where the departure of the local amateur opera group prompted him to remedy the resultant total lack of cultural/arts activities in the town. I was in my first year and brought my Interplay experience of street theatre and drama playschemes, resulting in a programme for young people in summer 1974. Pub theatre and a mummers’ play for older residents, along with a TIE (Theatre-in-Education) programme based on the Fire of London (part of the junior school curriculum at the time) were the main performance projects. We later added a playbus to the ‘venues’ we could access. That year local government was reorganized in England and ‘West Brom’ became one district of the new borough of Sandwell. Jubilee worked across the borough. 6. Barker, 2019, 93: ‘It would not be difficult to argue that falling is an essential part of any actor’s training’. 7. Belfast at that time was in the midst of The Troubles, as the armed conflict was called by many. The British Army patrolled the streets as the polarized communities went about their daily lives. 8. I was working with Neighbourhood Open Workshop (NOW) that summer, who ran creative workshops with children across Belfast. 9. Barker, 2019, 2–5. 10. Ibid., 69: ‘One must first of all release energy before one can work to control and discipline it’. 189

Clive Barker and His Legacy 11. Ibid., 29: ‘The kinaesthetic sense, or body think is the process by which we subconsciously direct and adjust the movements of our bodies in space, either in response to external stimuli, or to intentions arising in the mind.’ 12. For example in Theatre of Witness, community plays, forum theatre, etc. 13. The role of Intimacy Co-ordinator on a production team is similar to that of Fight Director, in that it concerns the safe choreographing of physical scenes, focusing on the technicality of movement and the language used to describe it, with an emphasis on safety, which in the case of intimacy includes emotional and psychological safety. From initial negotiated contractual agreements through to working with actors on the detail of who touches who, when and where in a scene – the respect shown for and to the actors is in contrast to the experience many have had previously. 14. Poulter, 1987. 15. Imelda Foley, working for Northern Ireland Arts Council at the time, was developing a network of community drama leaders, local adults working with young people in their own neighbourhoods. Following training workshops on using drama/theatre games, they asked for the playing instructions for more games – which became the basis for Playing The Game. 16. Known as ‘The Feeding of the Five Thousand’ – in The New Testament, the story is recorded in all four Gospels. 17. Barker, 2019, 85: On the origins of the game Court of Holy Dido ‘I learned this game in a Boy Scout troop in Middlesbrough as a child, where the Holy Dido was a knotted rope, which, with the terms Upper and Lower Deck, clearly points to its adult naval origins.’ 18. Ibid., 103. 19. Ibid., 101. 20. Ibid., 116. 21. Ibid., 116. 22. After years in exile, Boal returned to Brazil and continued to develop his Theatre of the Oppressed forms in response to circumstances and need. He entered local government, elected as a vereador (city councillor) for a few years, where he developed Legislative Theatre. 23. The Good Friday Agreement, 1998. 24. Barker, 2019, 64. 25. Barker, 1988, 144–51. 26. Boal, 1992, 2002. 27. Barker, 1988, 148. 28. Christie, 77. 29. Ibid., 78. 30. Image Theatre – players create images using their body and/or those of the others in the group.

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Nine Lives and Counting 31. Christie, 79. 32. Ibid., 79. 33. As opposed to a passive spectator, Boal invites a spectator who takes action – a ‘spect-actor’. 34. In workshops Boal refers to The Image of the Reality and The Reality of the Image. 35. Cop-in-the-head was developed when he came to accept that individual psychological pain/trauma was a significant social issue (he had found the high suicide statistics for the Western country in which he was staying at the time, during his exile . . . hence the name Cop-in-the-head – the internal ‘cops’ in the head causing self-regulation and, for some, the extreme of taking one’s own life. In workshop the participants embody these internal voices in order that proposals for change can be tried/enacted. 36. Christie, 77–8. 37. Three students, preparing for a discussion, sent each other a brief statement – a provocation – about something that was of concern/importance to them. Extracts from each of those provocations are included in these letters to Clive. This is the first of the three, Zara Gibney Fitzgerald. 38. Barker, 1977, 149. 39. BBC Radio 4, Start the Week, 5 April 2021. 40. Barker, 2019, 214. 41. Barker, Theatre Games back cover, 2010 reprint. 42. We still limit ourselves with the binary tendency. 43. Barker, 2019, 69–80. 44. Ibid., 8. 45. Ibid., 8–9. 46. Ibid., 215. 47. Ibid., vii–ix. 48. Poulter, 2007. 49. Ibid., 376–9. 50. Holdsworth, 293–304. 51. Fun Palace Trust – Joan Littlewood’s dream of creating a Fun Palace was given shape in the designs of architect Cedric Price and a trust was set up but, unable to acquire any land, the designs were never built. 52. Ibid., 301. 53. William Golding, Lord of the Flies, London: Penguin, 1954. 54. Gorney, 212. 55. This is outlined as a guardianship activity, ‘For Me’ (243–4), at the end of that section in my 2018 edition of Playing the Game (236–42).

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Clive Barker and His Legacy 56. Rees, 62, ref. The Late Clive James, ITV, 22 June 1985. 57. In Barker, 2019, 105: ‘In order to concentrate on other senses than sight, these exercises can be performed in the pitch dark. For some reason people have a strong illusory belief that they are anonymous in the dark and are, therefore, free to explore without normal restraint. For one other reason this is important. I would not carry out this work and take part myself in the early stages. The group can then rely on the security of one person standing outside the activity, as a guarantee that the activity will not get out of hand and lead into areas where they cannot control what is happening. For this reason, at the early stage, the leader is detached from the group and a curiosity is aroused. Contacts and relationships between him and the group are inhibited by factors outside the work itself. When there is an age gap between the leader and the group, this is intensified. Performed in the dark the exercise gives an opportunity for the group to approach and contact the leader in a safe situation’. 58. KBC: this is the second of the three students mentioned in note 37. 59. Ita O’Brien became well known internationally following her work as Intimacy Co-ordinator on the television dramatization of Sally Rooney’s book Normal People. She has helped develop guidelines, train intimacy co-ordinators and generally bring the practice of consent into the everyday world of training, rehearsals and performance. 60. ‘Dignity in the Workplace: Towards a Code of Behaviour (2018), Irish Theatre Institute, Dublin. This was announced at an event in 2018, Speak Up and Call it Out, in the wake of the revelations about Harvey Weinstein (and others). 61. Founded by Tarana Burke in 2006 to support survivors of sexual violence and to advocate for change, the Me Too movement was taken up globally in 2017, promoted on social media using the ‘hashtag’ #MeToo, which enabled many survivors to declare themselves as such, in solidarity with some sharing the story of their experiences online. High-profile cases against powerful figures in the entertainment world – e.g. Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein – prompted many to speak up. Weinstein was convicted and jailed in 2020, sentenced to twenty-three years. In 2021 he is appealing his sentence. 62. Barker, 2019, 103. 63. Ibid., 105. 64. Ibid., 67. 65. Published by Josef Weinberger Plays, 1987. 66. Vachel Lindsay, ‘The Congo’, in The Congo and Other Poems, 1913 (available at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1021/1021-h/1021-h.htm). 67. Black Lives Matter – campaign founded in 2013, strengthened and taken up globally in 2020, following the killing of George Floyd in America, by a white police officer who knelt on his neck for a prolonged period (despite Floyd’s calling ‘I can’t breathe’) and was subsequently convicted of his murder. 68. Yamélie Spautz: the third of the three students mentioned in note 37.

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Nine Lives and Counting 69. Waking the Feminists was a successful campaign started in November 2015, in response to the Abbey Theatre (Dublin) announcing its 2016 programme. Only one of the plays was written by a woman, prompting a year-long campaign to bring gender parity onto the agenda and into the policy and practice of the theatre sector, starting with the companies receiving major funding from the Irish Arts Council. Social media played a major part in spreading the news of the campaign, which became known by its Twitter hashtag, #WTF. 70. LGBTQ = Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer/Questioning. 71. The Anna Scher Theatre was founded by Anna Scher in 1968, based in Islington, London. 72. The Old Vic is a theatre in South East London. 73. Bashment, Oberon: London, 2005. Written and co-directed by Rikki BeadleBlair. 74. Team Angelica is a production company set up in 2002. 75. Okundaye, online.

Bibliography Barker, C., Theatre Games, London: Eyre Methuen, 1977; new edition, Methuen Drama, 2010, reprinted in 2012, 2016, 2017, 2019. Barker, C., ‘When the Kissing Stopped . . . and What Happened Next’, New Theatre Quarterly, 4:14, May 1988, 144–51. Boal, A., Games for Actors and Non-Actors, trans. Adrian Jackson, London: Routledge, 1992, and 2002. Christie, A., Agatha Christie: An Autobiography, London: Collins, 1977. Gorney, C., Send Me a Parcel with a Hundred Lovely Things, London: Ragged Clown Publishing, 2015. Holdsworth, N., ‘Spaces to Play / Playing with Spaces: Young people, Citizenship and Joan Littlewood’, Research in Drama Education, 12:3, 2007, 293–304. Okundaye, J., ‘Rikki Beadle-Blair: The Brilliant Stage and Screen Writer Who Should Be a Household Name’, The Guardian, 20 May 2021. Available at https://www. theguardian.com/society/2021/may/20/rikki-beadle-blair-brilliant-stage-screenwriter-should-be-household-name. Poulter, C., Playing the Game, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987, 2nd edition, revised, 2018. Poulter, C., ‘Playing with Pain: The Need for Guardianship in Groupwork’, New Theatre Quarterly, 23:4, November 2007, 376–9. Rees, J., Let’s Do It, London: Orion, 2020.

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Figure 7 Programme for the West End transfer of Oh What a Lovely War (1963). Editor’s collection

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APPENDIX I: AUTHORIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY AND PROFESSIONAL CREDITS Compiled by Nesta Jones

Authorial bibliography Books Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training, London: Eyre Methuen, 1977. Reissued in 2010 by London: Methuen Drama, including additional material: ‘About Theatre Games – A Critical Introduction’ by Dick McCaw, and a DVD. Reprinted 2012, 2016, 2017 and 2019 with video and supplementary material at: https://vimeo.com/channels/1495902 & https://www.scribd.com/lists/23051257/ Clive-Barker-Theatre-Games The US edition was published in 1978 with Japanese and Italian translations following in 1992 and 1999, respectively. The Tragedy of the Iman Hussein (AS), editor and author of ‘Introduction’, London: Bookextra Ltd, 1999. British Theatre between the Wars, 1918–1939, ed. with Maggie B. Gale, Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; including authored chapters: ‘Theatre and Society: The Edwardian Legacy, the First World War and the Inter-War Years’, 4–37; ‘The Ghosts of War: Stage Ghosts and Time Slips as a Response to War’, 215–43.

Translations Bertolt Brecht, The Days of the Commune, co-translated with Arno K. Reinfrank, London: Eyre Methuen, 1978.

Chapters in books ‘Theatre and Society’, in J. R. Brown (ed.), Drama and the Theatre, London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1971, 144–60. ‘A Theatre for the People’, in K. Richards and P. Thompson (ed.), Nineteenth Century British Theatre, London: Eyre Methuen, 1971, 3–24. ‘Meeting People’, in J. G. Davies (ed.), Worship and Dance, Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press, 1975, 34–42.

195

Clive Barker and His Legacy ‘Theatre in East Germany’, in R. Hayman (ed.), The German Theatre, London: Oswald Wolff Publications, 1975, 189–200. ‘From Fringe to Alternative’, in H. Hohne (ed.), Political Development on the British Stage in the Sixties and Seventies, Rostock: University of Rostock, 1977, 60–85. ‘Television Drama’, in H. Hohne (ed.), British Drama and Theatre from the MidFifties to the Mid-Seventies, Rostock: Wilhelm-Pieck Universitat, 1979, 75–88. ‘John Arden, Arnold Wesker, David Mercer’, three critical essays in Contemporary Dramatists, London: Macmillan, 1982, 48–9, 827–8, 965–6, respectively. ‘Il Teatro in un economia in declino’, trans. M. Cometa, in C. Vicentini (ed.), Il Teatro nella societe dello spettacolo, Bologna: Societe editrice il Mulino, 1983, 109–28. ‘Theatrical Production’, in Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th edn, Vol. 28, 1987, 554–608. ‘What Happened When the Kissing Stopped’, in R. Deldime (ed.), 1er Congres Mondial de Sociologie du Theatre, Rome: Bulzoni Editore, 1988, [np]. ‘Games in Education and the Theatre’, in F. Chami, A. Massala and B. Oufrid (eds), Theatre et Education, Casablanca: Wallada, 1988, 97–111. ‘Old Plays and New Realism’, in J. Histric (ed.), La Critique et L’Avenir du Theatre, Novi Sad: Sterijino Pozorje, 1988, 14–21. ‘Juegos teatrales’, in G. Antei (ed.), Las Rutas de Teatro, Bogota: Universidad Nacional de Colombia, 1989, 225–39. ‘Alternative Theatre/Political Theatre’, in G. Holderness (ed.), The Politics of Theatre and Drama, London: Macmillan, 1992, 18–43. ‘Theatre’, in W. Outhwaite and T. Bottomore (ed.), Blackwells Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Social Thought, Oxford: Blackwells, 1992, 666–9. ‘The Problems and Possibilities of Intercultural Penetration and Exchange’, in P. Pavis (ed.), The Intercultural Performance Reader, London: Routledge, 1995, 247–56. ‘The Experimental Tradition and its Methodological Possibilities’, in P. Paavolainen and A. Ala-Korpela (eds), Knowledge is a Matter of Doing, Helsinki: Theatre Academy of Finland, 1995, 7–38. ‘Rampant Pacificism: The Work of the Bradford College of Art Group 1967–1973’, in T. Howard and J. Stokes (eds), Acts of War, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996, 98–109. ‘The Silent Revolution’, in R. Merkin (ed.), Popular Theatres?, Liverpool: John Moores University, 1996, 6–18. ‘Vision and Reality: Their Very Own and Golden City and Centre 42’, in R. W. Dornan (ed.), Arnold Wesker: A Casebook, New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1998, 89–98. ‘Joan Littlewood’, in A. Hodge (ed.), Twentieth Century Actor Training, London: Routledge, 1999, 113–28. Second edition retitled Actor Training, 2010, 130–43. ‘Introduction to Part 1 – Practice to Theory : Theatre Games’, in L. Goodman and J. de Gay (eds), The Routledge Reader in Politics and Performance, London: Routledge, 2000, 17–20.

Articles Theatre Quarterly (TQ): ‘The Chartists, Theatre, Reform, and Research’, TQ, 1:4, Oct–Dec 1971, 3–10.

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Appendix I: Authorial Bibliography and Professional Credits ‘The Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama’, TQ, 4:16, Nov 1974 – Jan 1975, 55–68. ‘The “Image” in Show Business’, TQ, 8:29, Spring 1978, 7–11. ‘New Paths for Performance Research’, TQ, 8:30, Summer 1978, 3–7. ‘Towards a Theatre of Dynamic Ambiguities’, David Edgar interviewed by Clive Barker and Simon Trussler, edited transcript, TQ, 9:33, Spring 1979, 3–23. ‘The Audiences of the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton’, TQ, 9:34, Summer 1979, 27–41. ‘Pip Simmons in Residence’, TQ, 9:35, Autumn 1979, 17–30. ‘Theory, Practice, and Analytical Methods’, TQ, 9:36, Winter 1979–80, 6–8. ‘Pip Simmons: A Pictorial Postscript’, TQ, 9:36, Winter 1979–80, 55–9. ‘IOU and the New Vocabulary of Performance Art’, with Susan Burt, TQ, 10:37, Spring 1980, 70–94. ‘The Science Fictions of Shared Experience’, with Mike Alfreds, TQ, 10:39, Spring– Summer 1981, 12–23. New Theatre Quarterly (NTQ): ‘Old Friends’, [obituary tributes to James Arnott and Alan Schneider], NTQ, 1:1, February 1985, 128. ‘Callow on Acting’, [NTQ Notes and Reviews], NTQ, 1:3, August 1985, 317–19. ‘When the Kissing Stopped . . . and What Happened Next’, NTQ, 4:14, May 1988, 144–51. ‘Games in Education and Theatre’, NTQ, 5:19, August 1989, 227–35. ‘Zygmunt Hubner: Professional, Teacher, Diplomat’, [obituary tribute], NTQ, 5:20, November 1989, 404. ‘Ewan MacColl’ [obituary tribute], NTQ, 6:22, May 1990, 199–200. ‘Ironies in Novi Sad – Yugoslav Theatre Part 1’, [NTQ Report], NTQ, 8:29, August 1992, 92–4. ‘Marshal Godot Goes to War – Yugoslav Theatre Part 2’, [NTQ Report], NTQ, 9:35, August 1993, 290–2. ‘Obituary: Tom Vaughan, [NTQ Report], NTQ, 10:39, August 1994, 293. ‘And Still Kicking . . .’, [Jan Kott: An Eightieth Birthday Celebration], NTQ, 10:40, November 1994, 307–9. ‘What Training – for What Theatre?’, NTQ, 11:42, May 1995, 99–108. ‘Tell Me When It Hurts: The Theatre of Cruelty Season, Thirty Years On’, NTQ, 12:46, May 1996, 130–5. [NB: hereafter the numbering scheme changes according to NTQ’s revised system.] ‘Different Kinds of Strength’, [Editorial: ‘A milestone for the Millennium: One Hundred Issues and Onwards’], NTQ, 15:4, November 1999 (60), 297. ‘In Search of the Lost Mode: Improvisation and All That Jazz’, NTQ, 18:1, February 2002 (69), 10–16 [written as a tribute to Dick McCaw on his resignation as Artistic Director of the International Workshop Festival]. ‘Closing Joan’s Book: Some Personal Footnotes’, NTQ, 19:2, May 2003 (74), 99–107. ‘A Brief History of Clive Barker’, NTQ, 23:4, November 2007 (92), 295–303. 197

Clive Barker and His Legacy Miscellaneous selection: ‘A Theatre for Social Reform’, Prompt, 5, 1964, 24–6. ‘Reflections on Working Class Culture’, Views, 4, 1964, 40–3. ‘The State of the British Theatre’, Views, 5, [np]; Views, 7, 82–98; Views, 8, 92–8, Summer 1964 – Summer 1965. ‘Working in Leisure’, Continuum, 1, 1965, 6–12. ‘Look Back in Anger – The Turning Point’, Zeitschrift fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik (Z.A.A.), 4, 1966, 367–71. ‘Die situation im Britischen Theater’, Neue Literatur (Bucharest), 5–6, 1966, 144–6. ‘Contemporary Shakespearean Parody in British Theatre’, Shakespeare Jarbuch (Weimar), 1969, 25–9. ‘Universities and the Theatre, or Jack and the Beanstalk’, Speech and Drama, 19:1, Spring 1970, 25–9. ‘Voice Production in the German Democratic Republic’, Speech and Drama, 20:2, Summer 1971, 21–5. ‘Emergent (Malaysian) Theatre’, Drama, Winter 1973, 72–3. ‘Northern Manoeuvres’, Gambit, 6:23, 1973, 33–9. ‘Marxist Interpretations of Shakespeare: A Director’s Comments’, Socialist History Journal, (Weimar), 1978, 115–22, from paper given at World Shakespeare Conference, Washington D.C., April 1976. ‘From Fringe to Alternative Theatre’, Zeitschrift fur Anglistik und Americanistik (Z.A.A.), 1, 1978, 48–63. ‘Alternative Theatre in Britain’, Artery, 15, Autumn 1978, 34–7. ‘Shakespeare, Brecht and After’, Socialist History Journal, Weimar, 1979, 63–71. ‘The Politicisation of the British Theatre’, English American Studies (EAST), 2, 1980, 267–78. ‘Shakespeare’s Clowns and Contemporary Comedians’, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, Weimar, 1980, 61–8. ‘Outlook Changeable’, Outlook, 16, National Association for Drama in Education and Children’s Theatre, 1981, [np]. ‘Right You Are (If You Could Only Think So)’, The Yearbook of the British Pirandello Society, 1, 1981, 26–34. ‘Theatre Anthropology’, Théâtre International, 1:1, 1981, 19–21. ‘Theatre in a Declining Economy’, Théâtre International, 7:3, 1982, 37–47. ‘Theatre East and West’, Theatre Ireland, 4, September 1983, 39–45. ‘Locating Pirandello in the European Theatre Context’, with Susan Bassnett, The Yearbook of the British Pirandello Society, 5, 1985, 1–20. ‘La difficulte insurmountable’, with Susan Bassnett, Théâtre en Europe, 10, April 1986, 144–51. ‘Viejas Obras y Nuevo Realismo’, Tablas, 4, Havana, Cuba, 1988, 46–53. ‘Character and Discourse in Contemporary Productions of Shakespeare’, Shakespeare Jahrbuch, Weimar, 1990, 149–59. ‘British National Theatres – Cuckoos in the Nest’, Euromaske, 3, Spring 1991, 20–22; republished as ‘Teatros Nacionales Britanicos’, Revista ADE, 31/32, Madrid, September 1993, 73–7.

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Appendix I: Authorial Bibliography and Professional Credits

Novel Woche fur Woche (Week in, Week Out), trans. Gunther Klotz, Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1971; Second edition 1983.

Editorial Associate Editor, Theatre Quarterly, 1978–81, responsible for some editions and initiating commissions. Co-editor, New Theatre Quarterly, Cambridge University Press, 1984–2005. Editorial Board, Assaph, Studies in Theatre, University of Tel Aviv, 1985–2005. Editorial Advisory Board, South African Theatre Journal, Taylor & Francis, 1994–2005.

Professional credits Theatre Actor: Member of the Theatre Workshop Company First productions at the Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, UK: The Sheepwell by Lope de Vega, 1955. The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Alan Lomax, 1955. The Good Soldier Schweik, adaptation of Jaroslav Hasek’s novel by Ewan MacColl, 1955. The Dutch Courtesan by John Marston, 1959. The Hostage by Brendan Behan, 1959. Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be by Frank Norman and Lionel Bart, 1959. Transfers and premieres in the West End, London, UK: The Good Soldier Schweik, adaptation by Ewan MacColl, Duke of York’s Theatre, 1956. The Hostage by Brendan Behan, Wyndham’s Theatre, 1959. Oh What a Lovely War by Charles Chilton and members of the Company, Wyndham’s Theatre, 1960. The Merry Rooster Pantomime by Lionel Bart and Peter Shaffer, Wyndham’s Theatre, 1960. Twang!! by Lionel Bart (book, music, lyrics), Harvey Orkin and Bert Shevelove (book), Shaftesbury Theatre, 1965. Created the roles of Solly Gold in Enter Solly Gold by Bernard Kops for Centre 42, 1962, and Inspector Foot in After Magritte by Tom Stoppard for Ambiance Theatre, 1970.

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Clive Barker and His Legacy Director: A Clean Kill by Michael Gilbert, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, UK, 1960. The Lion in Love by Shelagh Delaney, Royal Court Theatre, UK, 1960. The Dice by Forbes Bramble, The Arts Theatre, Cambridge, UK, 1961. The Police by Slawomir Mrozek, The Arts Theatre, Cambridge, UK, 1961. Sinbad by Clive Barker, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, UK, 1961. Enter Solly Gold by Bernard Kops, Centre 42, UK, 1962. The Good Woman of Szechwan by Bertolt Brecht, St. Pancras Festival, London, UK, 1964. Lay By by Howard Brenton, Brian Clark, Trevor Griffiths, David Hare, Stephen Poliakoff, Hugh Stoddart, Snoo Wilson, German premiere, Buhnen der Stadt, Cologne, West Germany, 1974. You Can’t Take It With You by George S. Kaufmann and Moss Hart, German premiere, Buhnen der Stadt, Cologne, West Germany, 1974. Home by David Storey, Northcott Theatre, Exeter, UK, 1975. Mahagonny by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill (Baden-Baden version), Edinburgh Festival, Scotland, UK, 1975. Der Jasager by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill, Edinburgh Festival, Scotland, UK, 1975. Mass by Leonard Bernstein, Coventry Theatre, and the Royal Albert Hall, London, UK, 1976. Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe, Deutsches Nationaltheater, Weimar, Thuringa Land, German Democratic Republic, 1983. Oroonoko by Thomas Southerne, Teatro Colon, Bogota, Colombia, 1986. Translation: The Days of the Commune by Bertolt Brecht, co-translated with Arno K. Reinfrank for the Royal Shakespeare Company production, directed by Howard Davies, Aldwych Theatre, London, UK, 1977–8. Scenario: Le Farceur, a ballet choreographed by Clover Roope, Wyndham’s Theatre, London, UK, 1958. Media Radio documentaries (written and compiled): The Story of the Teeside Cyclists, on touring cyclists, BBC North, 1963. Landmarks series, Birth and Old Age, BBC Midlands, 1964. (The Landmarks series were subsequently remade for BBC TV.) Radio features: ‘The Provincial Theatre’ – 2 parts, BBC Midlands, 1964 ‘Business as Usual’, on concepts of Death and Dying in contemporary culture, Radio 3, 1965. 200

Appendix I: Authorial Bibliography and Professional Credits ‘Money for the Arts – A Plea for a Plan’, Radio 3, 1966. ‘The Cult of Festival’, Radio 3, 1967. Television documentaries (research and field recordings): The Abbey of the English, Westminster Abbey, BBC2, 1966. BD8 – A Study in Blindness, 2-part documentary, BBC2, 1967. Television authored play: The Queen Street Girls, BBC2, 1966.

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Figure 8 Clive with some of his students in Bogotá (1992). The Clive Barker Archive, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance.

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APPENDIX II: TEACHING AND TRAINING Compiled by Nesta Jones

Permanent appointments 1966–1974 1975–1996

1997–2000 2000–2005

Lecturer in Theatre Practice, Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, University of Birmingham. Lecturer, Department of Theatre and Performance Studies, University of Warwick, Senior Lecturer (01.10.1978), Acting Head of Department (1978), Chair of Department (1982–1984). Visiting Professor, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. Senior Research Fellow, Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. Professor of the College, 2004–2005.

Temporary appointments 1964–1965 1964–1970 1966–2005 1971–1976 1981 1983 1984–1985 1986 1978/1989 1982–2000 1990

1991

1991–1999

Visiting Tutor, London Academy of Dramatic Art (LAMDA), UK and East 15 School of Acting, UK. Director of Courses, National Youth Theatre. Guest Teacher, Drama Centre (acting and directing), UK. Guest Lecturer, Wilhelm-Pieck University, Rostock, GDR. British Council Exchange Fellow, Humboldt University, East Berlin, GDR. Guest Teacher, University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. Guest Teacher, National Drama School, Bogotá, Colombia. Lansdowne Visitor, University of Victoria, British Colombia, Canada. Guest Teacher/Workshop Leader, University of Warsaw, Poland. Guest Teacher, La Escuela de Formacion de Actores del Theatro Libre, Bogotá, Colombia. Guest Teacher, Upstairs Speech, Drama, Dance Workshop, Durban, RSA. Guest Teacher, Universities of Pietermaritzburg, Natal, Durban Westville, and Indimiso College of Education, Edendale, RSA Leader, 4th National Drama Workshop, Guild Theatre Federation of Bangladesh. Guest Teacher, University of Jahangirnagar and University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Workshop Leader, International Workshop Festival, London, UK. 203

Clive Barker and His Legacy 1992 1993 1994

1994 1995

1996 1997

1998

1998–1999 1999

2000

Trainer, Odin Teatret, Holstebro, Denmark. Workshop Leader, Medellin Theatres Colombia. Guest Teacher, National School of Drama, New Delhi, India. Leader, Public Workshops for the British Council, New Delhi, India. Trainer, The Company, Chandigarh, India. Guest Teacher, Academie Superior de Artes de Bogotá, Colombia. Guest Teacher, Universidad de Los Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. Guest Teacher, Institute of Dramatic Arts, University of Havana, Cuba. Guest Teacher, Universities of Belgrade and Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Guest Teacher, University del Valle, Cali Colombia. Guest Teacher, University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. Guest Teacher, La Casa de Teatro, Teatro Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia. Visiting Professor, University of Rome (La Sapienza), Italy. Workshop Leader, Abraxo Teatro, Rome, Italy. Guest Teacher, University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. Guest Teacher, University del Valle, Cali, Colombia. Guest Teacher, La Casa de Teatro, Teatro Nacional, Bogotá, Colombia. Workshop Leader, Beg, Borrow and Steal Theatre Company, Dublin, Ireland. Workshop Leader, Instituto des Belles Artes, Cali, Colombia. Workshop Leader, Centre for Performance Research, Conference on Brecht and Eisenstein, Aberystwyth, Wales. Workshop Leader, University of Tehran, Iranian Islamic Republic. Guest Teacher, Universidad del Atlantico, Barranquilla, Colombia.

University/drama school productions University of Birmingham Actor: Nitrogen by Rene Obaldia, directed by Geoffrey Reeves (professional production); Chin-Chin by Francois Billetdoux, directed by John Russell Brown (professional tour); title role in Tamburlaine Parts 1 & 2, directed by John Russell Brown. Director: plays by Euripides, Aristophanes, Stanislaw Witkiewicz, Bertolt Brecht and Howard Barker.

Drama Centre, London Director: Vassa Zhelessnova by Maxim Gorky.

204

Appendix II: Teaching and Training

University of Warwick Actor: Afraid to Fight by Georges Courteline, directed by Michael Booth; Out of Sight by John McGrath (also directed); Terkel by James Genereaux, directed by Tony Dunham.

Boards and committees 1961–1971 1967–1993 1971–1980 1974–1982 1974–1976 1977–1986 1978–1985 1985–2005 1980

1983–1988 1984–2005 1987–1997 1988 1988–1989 1988–1992 1989–1994 1990–2005

1991 1996–1997 1996–1997

Member of Board of Directors, Centre 42, London, UK. Trustee of Inter-Action, London, UK. Chair and Council Member, British Theatre Institute, London, UK. Associate Director of Almost Free Theatre, London, UK. Member of Equity Director’s Committee, London, UK. Chairman, Advisory Panel on Drama, Warwick Arts Centre, UK. Vice-Chairman, Executive Committee, International Theatre Institute (British Centre), London, UK. Member of Board of Directors, 7:84 Theatre Company, Scotland, UK. Member, International Symposium on the Training of Theatre Directors, Warsaw. Adviser/Monitor, International School of Theatre Anthropology/ Odin Teatret of Denmark. President, British Pirandello Society. Honorary Member of the Centro Internazional Studi di Estetica, University of Palermo. Member, Board of Directors, Albatross Arts Project and Geese Theatre, Birmingham, UK. Chairman of the Board, 1989–1997. Member, Panel of International Judges, 8th International Triennial Exhibition of Theatre Books and Periodicals, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Member, Advisory Panel for the Diploma Course in Dramatherapy, Art and Therapy Centre, Athens, Greece. Artistic Advisor, Company of Wolves, Glasgow, Scotland, UK. Member, Board of Directors, Festival of International Theatre Research, International Workshop Festival, UK. Member, International School of Theatre Anthropology, Bologna, Italy. Chair, 1995. Member, Panel of International Judges, 9th International Triennial Exhibition of Theatre Books and Periodicals, Novi Sad, Yugoslavia. Member of the Directing Board of the National Council for Drama Training, UK. Member of the Acting Board of the National Council for Drama Training, UK.

205

Clive Barker and His Legacy 1997–1999 1999–2000 1999–2005 1999–2005 1999–2005 1999–2005

Member, Board of Trustees, East 15 Acting School, Southend-on-Sea, UK. Member, Academic Board, London Centre of Islamic Studies, UK. Member, Advisory Board, East 15 Acting School, Southend-on-Sea, UK. Member, Board of Directors, Open Theatre and Shysters Theatre Company, Coventry, UK. Member, Board of Directors, Albatross Arts Project and Geese Theatre, Coventry, UK. Member, Board of Directors, Triangle Theatre, Coventry, UK.

Reports 1967

participated in an Expert Seminar, ‘Theatre and Community’, in Nottingham, designated UNESCO City of Literature, UK. Subsequently wrote reports on ‘Popular Theatre in Britain’ and ‘Street Theatre in Britain’ for UNESCO. Report for the Leningrad State Institute of Theatre, Music and Film, USSR on ‘The Organisational Structure of the British Theatre’. These reports were used and incorporated in institutional publications.

Conference Papers It is impossible to itemize all the instances of Clive Barker’s work as a teacher, supervisor, mentor, examiner, assessor, facilitator and theatre-maker; or list the titles of over fifty papers he gave, panels he contributed to, and other interventions he made at international conferences, meetings and festivals. Several of the conference papers were developed into articles or chapters but the majority remain unpublished. Provided here are selected examples of some of the UK organizations and those in other countries which invited him to speak: UK: Standing Committee of University Drama Departments, National Guild for Community Arts Education, British Psychological Association, British Pirandello Society, British Comparative Literature Association, Institute of Dramatherapy, Centre for Performance Research, Total Theatre, Central School of Speech and Drama, Liverpool John Moores University, and Consortium for the Co-ordination of European Performance and Theatre Studies (CONCEPTS). Overseas: Akademie der Wissenschaft (Berlin, GDR), Maxim Gorky Institute (Moscow, USSR), University of Ferrara (Italy), American Theatre Association, International Association of Theatre Critics, Marlowe Society of America, Shilpakala

206

Appendix II: Teaching and Training Academy of Bangladesh, Netherlands Theatre Institute, University of Aarhus (Denmark), and the Finnish Theatre Academy.

Conferences organized (University of Warwick) ‘Nineteenth Century Theatre’, with Michael Booth, 1976. ‘Nineteenth Century Popular Theatre’, 1983. ‘Women in Theatre History’, with Susan Bassnett, 1985. ‘The Musical’, 1987.

207

208

INDEX

The letter f following an entry indicates a page with a figure. abuse 185 accents 74 acting 74, 106, 172, 179 teaching 179–80 Actor Training (Hodge, Alison) 4 Aesop Lion in Love, The 69 After Magritte (Stoppard, Tom) 6, 18, 35, 36f agitprop 154 alignment 100–1 alternative theatre 18, 27–32, 36, 143 history 127–8 politics 127–8, 133 TQ 28–9, 42 women 34 Alternative Theatre Handbook (Itzen, Catherine) 29 Ancona, Ronni 159 anecdote 53, 55 myth-making 60–1 Anwell, Maggie 37, 38 archives 9, 27, 28, 29–30, 128–9, 143 see also history anecdote 53, 55, 60–1 archive fever 128 Fun Palace 130 liveness 129 as performance remains 51–2 RBC 149–56 scribal approaches 52, 54–5, 62–3 Arden, John 158 Arden, John and D’Arcy, Margaretta 40 Ars Longa, Vita Brevis 40 Arendt, Hannah 115 Arnott, James 22 Ars Longa, Vita Brevis (Arden, John and D’Arcy, Margaretta) 40 arts, the 133 Arts Centres: Every Town Should Have One (Lane, John) 42

Arts Council of Great Britain 38, 39 ATM (Awareness Through Movement) 97, 101 ‘Audiences of the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton’(Barker, Clive) 19 audio-walks 130 see also Voices from the Village autism 167–8 Awareness Through Movement (ATM) 97, 101 Bailey, Bryan 70–1 Bakhtin, Mikhail Rabelais and His World 122–3 balance 100–1 Baldwin, Chris 2, 149, 150f Flow Quartet, The 113, 114–15, 117, 118–22, 123 Baldwin, Chris and Bicat, Tina Devised and Collaborative Theatre 111–12 Bangladesh 162 Barba, Eugenio 3, 5–6, 9, 16, 28 NTQ 22 Barker, Clive 8f, 24f, 36f, 97f, 150f, 202f LIFE: 1, 3; appearance 87, 88; birth 14, 62; character 33–4, 88; education 15; early employment 14–15, 62; family 78, 168; health 169; marriage/ divorce 22; masculinity 63; nickname 25; politics 62–3, 111–12, 140, 152–4, 155; thoughts 149–70 (See Evening with Clive Barker, An) RELATIONSHIPS: Arnott, James 22; Barba, Eugenio 5–6, 9, 16; Brown, John Russell 19; Collins, Una 70; Delaney, Shelagh 73; Holdsworth, Nadine 53–4; Hunt, Albert 39–40; Johnstone, Keith 168–9; Jones, Len 155; Littlewood, Joan 3, 4, 14, 15, 18, 23, 55–63, 74, 129–30, 162; Martin,

209

Index Bill 41; Murphy, Brian 18; Poulter, Chrissie 173–89; Samuel, Raphael 155; Schneider, Alan 22; Thomas, Tom 155; Trussler, Simon 13, 22; Waterfield, Carran 39; Wesker, Arnold 6, 16–17; women 33–4, 35 THEATRE CAREER: 9, 19–20, 32, 39; as academic 7–9, 14, 19, 20–1, 32–3, 40, 87–93, 99, 149, 171, 203–4; as actor 3–4, 6, 14, 15, 23, 24–5, 35, 56–7, 73–4, 129–30, 199; alternative theatre 27–32, 36, 42; archives 9, 27, 28, 29–30, 127, 149–70; biographies 67; boards and committees 205–6; body/ think 100, 172; Bradford College of Art 40; bullying 33–4, 90, 184; Centre 42 16–17, 31; Clive Barker Community Theatre 80; collaborative theatre 111–12; conferences organized 207; conference papers 206–7; as director 5, 14, 15, 21, 67, 70, 73–5, 76, 77–8, 81, 200; Drama Centre, London 204; as editor 1, 13, 16, 18–19, 22, 29, 41; Fun Palace 134; games 57, 95, 98, 101–7, 130, 137, 139, 167, 171–2, 179, 180, 182, 184, 185; influences 95–6, 99–100, 122–3; Inter-Action 35; Laban, Rudolf 95–8; legacy 64, 173, 188–9; movement 95–107, 169; national service 15; networking 39, 40; New Theatre Quarterly 22; Northcott Theatre 21; Prompt 16–17; RBC 149; rehearsal 56, 57, 58–9; reports 207; social justice 6; as stage manager 15, 56; street theatre 37–8; as teacher 4, 5, 73, 87–93, 97f, 98, 101–5, 130, 151, 155–6, 159–60, 171–2, 203–4; Theatre Quarterly 18–21, 28–9, 41–2; Theatre Workshop 15–16, 18, 31, 52–63; as translator 5, 200; travel 6–7, 31, 89, 162; as trustee 6; University of Birmingham 7, 19–20, 32–4, 39, 99, 171–2, 204; University of Warwick 8, 21, 87–93, 159–60, 205, 207; Workers’ Theatre Movement 152; as writer 5, 6, 16–17, 29–30, 99–100, 112 WORKS: 7, 111–12, 195–9, 200–1, 207–8; ‘Audiences of the Britannia

210

Theatre, Hoxton’ 19; ‘Brief History of Clive Barker, A’ 54, 62; British Theatre Between the Wars 19; ‘Chartists, Theatre, Reform, and Research, The’ 19, 30–1 ‘Closing Joan’s Book: Some Personal Footnotes’ 4, 62; Days of the Commune, The 5; ‘Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama, The’ 7–8, 19, 32; ‘Games in Education and Theatre’ 9; Hostage, The 5; ‘In Search of the Lost Mode’ 106; ‘New Theatres, New Ideas’ 17; ‘Old Friends’ 22; Story of the Teeside Cyclists, The 31; Strike 31; ‘Theatre for Social Reform, A’ 17; Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training. See Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training; ‘Vision and Reality: Their Very Own and Golden City and Centre 42’ 6; ‘What Training – for What Theatre’ 9; ‘When the Kissing Stopped . . . and What Happened Next’ 177 Barlow, Patrick 33, 34 Bart, Lionel Twang!! 6, 14 Bart, Lionel and Norman, Frank Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be 3, 57 Bashment (Beadle-Blair, Rikki) 188 Beadle-Blair, Rikki 188 Bashment 188 Behan, Brendan 58 Hostage, The (An Giall). See Hostage, The Belgrade Theatre 70–1, 75–7 Bennett, Alan Beyond the Fringe 14 Beowulf and the Dragon (Berman, ED) 37 Berman, ED 18, 33, 34, 35–6, 38, 160 Beowulf and the Dragon 37 games 37 Bernard, Heinz 13 Bernstein, Leonard Mass 5 ‘Beyond Naturalism Pure’ (Hall, Stuart) 80 Beyond the Fringe (Bennett, Alan) 14 Bicat, Tina and Baldwin, Chris Devised and Collaborative Theatre 111–12

Index Binaural Dinner Date (ZU-UK) 131, 142 Bloomers 34 Blue Blouses 153 Boal, Augusto 114, 116, 161, 165–6 Cop-in-the-head 178 Games for Actors and Non-Actors! 177 happiness 176 image creation 177–8 body, the 116 see also movement Body and Mature Behaviour, The (Feldenkrais, Moshé) 99 body/think 100, 172 Botswana 160–1 boundaries 184–6 Bradby, David and McCormick, John People’s Theatre 42 Bradford Art College Theatre Group 39, 40 Destruction of Dresden or A Carnival for St. Valentine’s Eve, The 40–1 John Bull’s Cuban Missile Crisis 40–1 Passion of Adolf Hitler, The 49–1 Bradford College of Art 40 Russian Revolution re-enactment 40 brain, the 96, 99–100 Bratton, Jacky 52, 53, 54–5 New Readings in Theatre History 60–1 ‘Breaking Down’ 182 Brecht, Bertolt 114, 156, 162 Days of the Commune, The 5 Edward II 156 Visions of Simone Machard, The 13 Brecht, Bertolt and Weill, Kurt Jasager, Der 5 Mahagonny 5 Brenton, Howard, Clark, Brian, Griffiths, Trevor, Hare, David, Poliakoff, Stephen, Stoddart, Hugh and Wilson, Snoo Lay By 5 ‘Brief History of Clive Barker, A’ (Barker, Clive) 54, 62 Brighton Combination 39 British Theatre Between the Wars (Barker, Clive and Gale, Maggie B.) 19 British Theatre Institute (BTI) 20–1 Brown, John Russell 19 BTI (British Theatre Institute) 20–1 Büchner, Georg Danton’s Death 102 Burke, Patricia 74, 79

Callow, Simon 28 carnival 122–3 Cartoon Archetypal Slogan Theatre (CAST) 128 Caruth, Cathy 114, 115 Casey, James, Roscoe, Frank and Taylor, Ronnie Clitheroe Kid, The 74 CAST (Cartoon Archetypal Slogan Theatre) 128 Centre 42 6, 16–17, 31, 38, 128 Chaplin, Charlie 156–7 Dog’s Life, A 156–7 ‘Chartists, Theatre, Reform, and Research, The’ (Barker, Clive) 19, 30–1 Chicken Soup with Barley (Wesker, Arnold) 70 children 37, 38, 102, 176–7 Chilton, Charles and members of the Company, Wyndham’s Theatre Oh What a Lovely War 1, 4, 14, 18, 57, 155, 194f China 153 Christie, Agatha 177, 178 citizen-centred dramaturgy 112, 114, 117–23 citizens 118–19 Clark, Brian, Griffiths, Trevor, Hare, David, Poliakoff, Stephen, Stoddart, Hugh, Wilson, Snoo and Brenton, Howard Lay By 5 class 127 Clean Kill, A (Gilbert, Michael) 14 Clitheroe Kid, The (Casey, James, Roscoe, Frank and Taylor, Ronnie) 74 Clive Barker Award 8 Clive Barker Community Theatre 80 Clive Barker Research Fellow 27 ‘Clocking Game’ 95, 106–7 ‘Closing Joan’s Book: Some Personal Footnotes’ (Barker, Clive) 4, 62 clowning 156–8, 159 collaborative theatre 111–12 collective trauma 113–16, 119 Collins, Una 70, 76, 80 colonialism 186–7 Comedians (Griffiths, Trevor) 91 comedy 90–2 community 128, 129, 134, 136–7, 140, 143 community theatre 160–1, 165

211

Index ‘Congo, The’ (Lindsay, Vachel) 186–7 conscious control 100 consensus and consent 181–4 consumer culture 139 Cop-in-the-head 178 Coult, Tony 33, 35, 37–8 ‘Count of Holy Dido’ 182, 204 n. 17 counterpoint 58 Coupland, Diana 71 COVID-19 pandemic 174–6, 178 Croft, Susan 2, 27 cybernetics 130, 136 Danton’s Death (Büchner, Georg) 102 D’Arcy, Margaretta and Arden, John 40 Ars Longa, Vita Brevis 40 Days of the Commune, The (Brecht, Bertolt) 5 Delaney, Shelagh 15, 61, 71–3, 79, 81 censorship 75, 77–9 Clive Barker Community Theatre 80 Lion in Love, The. See Lion in Love, The Littlewood, Joan 15, 67–8 Sweetly Sings the Donkey 81 Taste of Honey, A 23, 67, 69, 70, 74, 79 democracy 139 democratic dialogue 121 democratic vision 121 design (sound and visual) 119–20 Destruction of Dresden or A Carnival for St. Valentine’s Eve, The (Bradford Art College Theatre Group) 40–1 developing countries 160–2, 166 Devine, George 76–7 Devised and Collaborative Theatre (Baldwin, Chris and Bicat, Tina) 111–12 diagnostic tools 121–2 ‘Dilemma of the Professional in University Drama, The’ (Barker, Clive) 7–8, 19, 32 diversity 187 Doctor Faustus (Marlowe, Christopher) 5 Dog’s Life, A (Chaplin, Charlie) 156–7 drama therapy 178 dramascapes 37, 171 dramaturgy 114 citizen-centred 112, 114, 117– 23 Dunne-Howrie, Joseph 2 Voices from the Village 130–1, 137–40

212

Dyson, Jeremy, Gatiss, Mark, Pemberton, Steve and Shearsmith, Reece League of Gentlemen, The 159 ECoC (European Capital of Culture). See European Capital of Culture economy, the 133 Edward II (Brecht, Bertolt) 156 Edward II (Marlowe, Christopher) 63 Encore Theatre Magazine 46 n. 62 ensembles 180 Enter Solly Gold (Kops, Bernard) 6 Eugeniou, George 28 Europe 115 see also Poland European Capital of Culture (ECoC) (Wrocław) ‘Flow’ parts I and II 113, 120 Flow Quartet, The 113, 114–15, 117, 118–22, 123 ‘Mosty (‘Bridges’) 113, 120, 121–2 ‘Niebo’ (‘Heaven/Sky’) 113, 117 ‘Przebudzenie’ (‘Awakening’) 113, 120, 122 Evening with Clive Barker, An (RBC) 149–70 autism 167–8 Boal, Augusto 161, 165–6 clowning 156–8, 159 communication 167–8 community theatre 160–1, 165 community theatre abroad 160–2 funding 164 games 167 health 169 improvisation 168 Ireland 165–6 Johnstone, Keith 168–9 Madonna 159–60 Morecambe and Wise 157–8 Pip Simmons Theatre Group 162–3 Poulter, Chrissie 166–7 revolutionary theatre 152–4 7:84 163 Shakespeare, William 159 star system 164 Sutton, Dudley 164 theatre roots 158–9 Theatre Workshop 162 Expresso Bongo (Mankowitz, Wolf and More, Julian) 70, 71

Index failure 179 fascism 153 Fast Show, The (Whitehouse, Paul and Higson, Charlie) 159 feelings, control of 185 Feldenkrais, Moshé 95, 99–100 Awareness Through Movement (ATM) 97, 101 Body and Mature Behaviour, The 99 feminism 34–5, 187 Ferdinand the Matador (Lehman, Leo and Whelen, Christopher) 71 Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be (Norman, Frank and Bart, Lionel) 3, 57 ‘Five Thousand Words’ 173 ‘Flow’ parts I and II (Wrocław, European Capital of Culture [ECoC]) 113, 120 Flow Quartet, The (Wrocław, European Capital of Culture [ECoC]) 113, 114–15, 117, 118–22, 123 Foley, Imelda 204 n. 15 Ford, John Stagecoach 169 Freire, Paulo 116 Fuente Ovejuna (The Sheep Well) (Vega, Lope de) 3, 56 Fun Palace 130, 134–5, 137, 182 Gale, Maggie B. and Barker, Clive British Theatre Between the Wars 19 games 37, 38, 40, 57, 101–7, 137, 167, 180 ‘Breaking Down’ 182 Binaural Dinner Date 142 children 176–7 ‘Clocking Game’ 95, 105–6 consensus and consent 182, 184 ‘Count of Holy Dido’ 182, 204 n. 17 in the dark 184 feelings, control of 185 ‘Five Thousand Words’ 173 ‘Grandmother’s Footsteps’ 104 Hunt, Albert 40, 41 Littlewood, Joan 58, 102 movement 98, 101–3 movement qualities 103–5 ‘Pirate’s Treasure’ 104 pleasure 176–7 Poulter, Chrissie 171–3, 175–8, 179, 182 ‘Raft of Medusa, The ‘102 stress 179, 180

technology 175–6 ‘Victim games’ 182 ‘Violence’ 182 Games After Liverpool (Saunders, James) 37 Games for Actors and Non-Actors! (Boal, Augusto) 177 ‘Games in Education and Theatre’ (Barker, Clive) 9 Gatiss, Mark, Pemberton, Steve, Shearsmith, Reece and Dyson, Jeremy League of Gentlemen, The 159 Gay Sweatshop 35, 128 General Will, The 128 Germany 153 Gilbert, Michael Clean Kill, A 14 Glendinning, Robin Mumbo Jumbo 186–7 globalization 134 Godsell, Vanda 71, 74, 76 Golding, William Lord of the Flies 183 Good Soldier Schweik, The (ad. MacColl, Ewan) 3, 15, 57, 164 Goorney, Howard 25, 76, 79 Theatre Workshop Story, The 4, 56, 62 Gorney, Carry 171 Grabowski, Jan 124 n. 9 ‘Grandmother’s Footsteps’ 104 greetings 175 Griffiths, Trevor Comedians 91 Griffiths, Trevor, Hare, David, Poliakoff, Stephen, Stoddart, Hugh, Wilson, Snoo, Brenton, Howard and Clark, Brian Lay By 5 Gross, Jan 124 n. 9 Guardian 187–8 Guerrilla Theatre event, Birmingham University 39 ‘Guide to Underground Theatre’ (TQ) 18 hacking 129, 140–2 Hall, Stuart ‘Beyond Naturalism Pure’ 80 Handke, Peter Offending the Audience 37 handshakes 174–5 happiness 176–7, 178–9

213

Index Hare, David, Poliakoff, Stephen, Stoddart, Hugh, Wilson, Snoo, Brenton, Howard, Clark, Brian and Griffiths, Trevor Lay By 5 Harris, Jenny 38 Hart, Moss and Kaufman, George S. You Can’t Take It With You 5 Heriot, C. D. 75, 77, 78 Hesitate and Demonstrate 34 Higson, Charlie and Whitehouse, Paul Fast Show, The 159 Hiley, Jim 33 history 55, 128 see also archives and memory Caruth, Cathy 114, 115 collective trauma 113–16, 119 Poland 114–15, 116–17 revolutionary theatre 152–4 #RioFoneHack at TBW 141 Wrocław 114–15, 117, 119 Hobson, Harold 79 Hodge, Alison Actor Training 4 Holdsworth, Nadine 2, 53–4 Joan Littlewood’s Theatre 54 ‘Spaces to Play’ 182 Holocaust, the 115 Home (Storey, David) 5 Homosexual Acts 35 homosexuality 63 Hopes for Great Happenings: Alternatives in Education and Theatre (Hunt, Albert) 39 horseplay 174 Hostage, The (An Giall) (Behan, Brendan) 1, 4, 5, 14, 23–5, 57 casting 24f movement work 73–4 rehearsals 58, 60, 67–8 writing 68 Hotel Medea (ZU-UK) 140–1 Hoyle, Geoff 33 Hozier, Anthony 149 hugs 174 human condition 179–81 Hunt, Albert 38, 39–41 Hopes for Great Happenings: Alternatives in Education and Theatre 39

214

identity 133–4 I’m Talking about Jerusalem (Wesker, Arnold) 70 Impro (Johnstone, Keith) 106 improvisation 168 ‘In Search of the Lost Mode’ (Barker, Clive) 106 India 161 Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Institute for National Remembrance) 115 Inter-Action 18, 33, 34, 35–7, 38, 39, 128, 160 Inter-Action Games Method 37 International Theatre Institute (ITI) 21 International Union of Revolutionary Theatre (IURT) 152 International Workshop Festival 103–4 internet, the 136 Interplay Theatre 33, 35, 171, 182 intimacy 174–5 boundaries 184–6 consensus and consent 181–4 direction 172 Ireland 165–6, 172, 176, 186–7 Italian Straw Hat, An (Labiche, Eugène and Marc-Michel) 59 ITI (International Theatre Institute) 21 Itzen, Catherine 28, 163 Alternative Theatre Handbook 29 IURT (International Union of Revolutionary Theatre) 152 Japan 152, 153 Jasager, Der (Brecht, Bertolt and Weill, Kurt) 5 Joan Littlewood’s Theatre (Holdsworth, Nadine) 54 Joan’s Book (Littlewood, Joan) 68 John Bull’s Cuban Missile Crisis (Bradford Art College Theatre Group) 40–1 Johnstone, Keith 168–9 Impro 106 Join Stock 128 Jones, Len 155 Jubilee Theatre & Community Arts 171, 182–3 justice 182–3 Karlstadt, Liesl 156 Kaufman, George S. and Hart, Moss You Can’t Take It With You 5

Index Kelly, Jude 33–4, 44 n. 20 Kidd, Ross 160–1, 162 Kops, Bernard Enter Solly Gold 6 Kustow. Michael 28 Laban, Rudolf 95–8, 103–5 Mastery of Movement, The 96, 104 Labiche, Eugène and Marc-Michel Italian Straw Hat, An 59 Lane, John Arts Centres: Every Town Should Have One 42 Laub, Dori 115–16 Lay By (Brenton, Howard, Clark, Brian, Griffiths, Trevor, Hare, David, Poliakoff, Stephen, Stoddart, Hugh and Wilson, Snoo) 5 League of Gentlemen, The (Dyson, Jeremy, Gatiss, Mark, Pemberton, Steve and Shearsmith, Reece) 159 Lehman, Leo and Whelen, Christopher Ferdinand the Matador 71 Levin, Bernard 79 Lindsay, Vachel ‘Congo, The’ 186–7 Lion in Love, The (Aesop) 69 Lion in Love, The (Delaney, Shelagh) 2, 5, 14, 72f accents 74, 75, 76 auditions 71 Barker, Clive 73–5, 76, 77–8, 81 Belgrade Theatre 70–1, 75–7 Burke, Patricia 74, 79 cast changes 74, 77 censorship 75, 77–9 Collins, Una 70, 76 Coupland, Diana 71 Godsell, Vanda 71, 74, 76 Goorney, Howard 76, 79 Hall, Stuart 80 Littlewood, Joan 67–8, 71, 81 Lord Chamberlain’s Office 75, 77–9 Mankowitz, Wolf 70, 73, 75, 76 media reports 71–2 naturalism 80 Norman, Monty 71, 75 off-Broadway 81 plot 68–9 rehearsals 71, 73, 77

reviews 75–7, 78, 79–80 revisions 77 Royal Court 77–80 theme 69 literacy programmes 161 Littlewood, Joan 3, 14, 18, 24 see also Theatre Workshop background 73 Barker, Clive 3, 4, 14, 15, 18, 23, 55–60, 74 casting 24 character 60, 61 counterpoint 58 cybernetics 130, 136 death 61 Delaney, Shelagh 15, 67–8 Devine, George 76–7 Fun Palace 130, 135, 182 games 58, 102 Hostage, The (Behan, Brendan) 5, 58, 60, 67–8 Joan’s Book 68 legacy 162 Lion in Love, The (Delaney, Shelagh) 67–8, 71, 81 Murphy, Brian 3 myth of 60–2 Oh What a Lovely War (Chilton, Charles and members of the Company, Wyndham’s Theatre) 4 Osborne, John 76–7 politics 62 punishment 182 Taste of Honey, A (Delaney, Shelagh) 79 working method 52, 57, 58–60, 63, 73 Littlewood, Joan and MacColl, Ewan Good Soldier Schweik, The 3, 15, 57, 164 liveness 129 London 131–2 see also Olympic legacy regeneration 132–3, 137–40, 141 #RioFoneHack at TBW 141 London Legacy Development Corporation 137–40 Lord Chamberlain’s Office 75, 77–9 Lord of the Flies (Golding, William) 183 McCaw, Dick 2, 176 MacColl, Ewan 18, 152, 153 MacColl, Ewan and Littlewood, Joan Good Soldier Schweik, The 3, 15, 57, 164

215

Index McCormick, John and Brady, David People’s Theatre 42 Madonna 159–60 Magdalena Project 34–5 Mahagonny (Brecht, Bertolt and Weill, Kurt) 5 Make Me an Offer (Mankowitz, Wolf) 70 Man, Beast and Virtue (Pirandello, Luigi) 70 Mankowitz, Wolf 70, 71, 73, 75, 76 Make Me an Offer 70 Mankowitz, Wolf and More, Julian Expresso Bongo 70, 71 Maravala, Persis Jadé 140 Marc-Michel and Labiche, Eugène Italian Straw Hat, An 59 Marlowe, Christopher Doctor Faustus 5 Edward II 63 Marowitz, Charles, Barker, Clive and Muldoon, Roland ‘New Theatres, New Ideas’ 17 Martin, Bill 41 Mass (Bernstein, Leonard) 5 Mastery of Movement, The (Laban, Rudolf) 96, 104 Melvin, Murray 1, 23, 24 memory 51–3, 55, 128 collective trauma 113–16, 119 legislation 115, 117 mental health 178–80 Method of Physical Actions 103 #MeToo movement 185 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A (Shakespeare, William) 103 Monstrous Regiment 35 More, Julian and Mankowitz, Wolf Expresso Bongo 70, 71 Morecambe and Wise 157–8 Morgan, Fidelis 44 n. 34 ‘Mosty (‘Bridges’) (Wrocław, European Capital of Culture [ECoC]) 113, 120, 121–2 movement 95–107, 116, 169 movement qualities 103–5 Muldoon, Roland, Barker, Clive and Marowitz, Charles ‘New Theatres, New Ideas’ 17 Mumbo Jumbo (Glendinning, Robin) 186–7

216

Murphy, Brian 3, 4, 18, 57, 59 movement 98 myth-making 60–1 national identity 134 neurodiversity 167–8, 178, 180 neuroscience 96, 99–100 Never Had It So Good (Wiles, John) 70 New Chair, The (Valentin, Karl) 156 New Readings in Theatre History (Bratton, Jacky) 60–1 New Theatre Quarterly (NTQ) 2–3, 13, 22, 39 see also TQ ‘New Theatres, New Ideas’ (Barker, Clive, Marowitz, Charles and Muldoon, Roland) 17 Newlove, Jean 96 ‘Niebo’ (‘Heaven/Sky’) (Wrocław, European Capital of Culture [ECoC]) 113, 117 Norman, Frank and Bart, Lionel Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be 3, 57 Norman, Monty 71, 75 Northcott Theatre 21 NTQ (New Theatre Quarterly) 2–3, 13, 22, 39 see also TQ O’Brien, Ita 184, 185 Odin Teatret 3, 39 Offending the Audience (Handke, Peter) 37 Oh! Calcutta! (Tynan, Kenneth) 17 Oh What a Lovely War (Chilton, Charles and members of the Company, Wyndham’s Theatre) 1, 4, 14, 18, 57, 155, 194f Okundaye, Jason 187, 188 ‘Old Friends’ (Barker, Clive) 22 Olympic Games 131 legacy 129–35, 137–40 oral histories 51–2 Oroonoko (Southerne, Thomas) 5 Osborne, John 76–7, 79–80 Othello (Shakespeare, William) 159 Parker, Charles 31 Passion of Adolf Hitler, The (Bradford Art College Theatre Group) 49–1 pedagogy 116 Pemberton, Steve, Shearsmith, Reece, Dyson, Jeremy and Gatiss, Mark League of Gentlemen, The 159

Index People Show 128 People’s Theatre (Brady, David and McCormick, John) 43 performance 55, 56–9, 128 carnival 122–3 live 129 remains 51–2 technology 129 Perspectives 33 Pip Simmons Theatre Group 162–3 Pirandello, Luigi Man, Beast and Virtue 70 ‘Pirate’s Treasure’ 104 Pit, The (TOC) 37 Pitches, Ceri 2, 87–93 platforms 137 play 38, 171–2 see also games feelings, control of 185 horseplay 174 Martin, Bill 41 movement 98 pleasure 176–7 playfulness 122–3 Playing the Game (Poulter, Chrissie) 172–3, 179 ‘Playing with Pain’ (Poulter, Chrissie) 182 pleasure 176–7 Poland see also Wrocław history 114–15, 116–17 Instytut Pamięci Narodowej (Institute for National Remembrance) 115 Poliakoff, Stephen, Stoddart, Hugh, Wilson, Snoo, Brenton, Howard, Clark, Brian, Griffiths, Trevor and Hare, David Lay By 5 politics 71, 112, 113–15, 117, 131–2 arts, the 133 democracy 121,139 economy, the 133 fascism 153 privatization 133 propaganda 152 revolutionary theatre 152–4 socialism 127 theatre 127–8 Poulter, Chrissie 2, 166–7, 171–2, 183, 188 Barker, Clive 173–89 boundaries 184–6 consensus and consent 181–4

diversity 186–8 happiness 176–9 horseplay and hugs 174–6 human condition 179–81 Jubilee Theatre & Community Arts 171, 182–3 Mumbo Jumbo (Glendinning, Robin) 186–7 Playing the Game 172–3, 179 ‘Playing with Pain’ 182 privatization 133 Prompt magazine 13, 16–17 propaganda 152 ‘Przebudzenie’ (‘Awakening’) (Wrocław, European Capital of Culture [ECoC]) 113, 120, 122 psychoanalytical theory 114, 115–16 psychotherapy 178 public space 40, 135–6, 140–2 punishment 182, 183 Rabelais and His World (Bakhtin, Mikhail) 122–3 Raffles, Gerry 68 ‘Raft of Medusa, The’ 102 Ramos, Jorge Lopes 140 RBC (Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance) 9 Evening with Clive Barker, An. See Evening with Clive Barker, An ‘Theatre Games – A Celebration of the Work of Clive Barker’ 9 Red Megaphones 127, 153 Rees, Roland 163 regeneration 132–3, 137–40, 141 rehearsal 56, 57–9, 114, 115–16 intimacy 174 Teatro de Creación (TdC) 117–18 revolutionary theatre 152–4 Richard III (Shakespeare, William) 159 #RioFoneHack at TBW (ZU-UK) 131, 141–2 Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare, William) 187 Roscoe, Frank, Casey, James and Taylor, Ronnie Clitheroe Kid, The 74 Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance (RBC). See RBC Royal Court 77–80 Russia 152, 153

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Index Russian Revolution re-enactment (Bradford College of Art) 40 Sadista Sisters 34 Saint’s Day (Whiting, John) 15 Samuel, Raphael 155 Saunders, James Games After Liverpool 37 Schneider, Alan 22 Schneider, Rebecca 51 Scott, Clement 52 scribal approaches 52 7:84 128, 163 sexual abuse 185 sexual politics 33–5, 173–4 sexuality 63 Shakespeare, William 159 Midsummer Night’s Dream, A 103 Othello 159 Richard III 159 Romeo and Juliet 187 Shearsmith, Reece, Dyson, Jeremy, Gatiss, Mark and Pemberton, Steve League of Gentlemen, The 159 Sierz, Aleks 2 Simon, Barney 166 Smallwood, Peter 63 social class 127 socialism 127 Southerne, Thomas Oroonoko 5 Soviet Union 152, 153 space 119 see also public space ‘Spaces to Play’ (Holdsworth, Nadine) 182 Speak Up and Call it Out – Dignity in the Workplace 185 speech 74–5 Stagecoach (Ford, John) 169 Stalin, Joseph 153 Stanislavsky, Konstantin Method of Physical Actions 103 star system 164 Start the Week (radio show) 178 Stoddart, Hugh, Wilson, Snoo, Brenton, Howard, Clark, Brian, Griffiths, Trevor, Hare, David and Poliakoff, Stephen Lay By 5 Stoppard, Tom After Magritte 6, 18, 35, 36f

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Storey, David Home 5 Story of the Teeside Cyclists, The (Barker, Clive) 31 street theatre 38 Strike (Barker, Clive) 31 surveillance 136 Sutton, Dudley 164 Sweetly Sings the Donkey (Delaney, Shelagh) 81 Talacre Centre 36 talk-bricks 183 Taste of Honey, A (Delaney, Shelagh) 23, 67, 69, 70, 74, 79 Taylor, Ronnie , Roscoe, Frank and Casey, James Clitheroe Kid, The 74 TdC (Teatro de Creación) 117–22 Teatro de Creación (TdC) 117–22 technology 131, 135–7 COVID-19 pandemic 174, 175–6 That’s Not It 34 The General Will 128 The Magdalena Project 34–5 The Other Company (TOC). See TOC theatre 133–4 see also alternative theatre collaborative 111–12 community 160–1, 165 funding 164 improvisation 168 mobility 135 revolutionary 152–4 roots 158–9 star system 164 street 38 underground 18 theatre archive game 28 ‘Theatre for Social Reform, A’ (Barker, Clive) 17 ‘Theatre Games – A Celebration of the Work of Clive Barker’ (RBC event) 9 Theatre Games: A New Approach to Drama Training (Barker, Clive) 1, 8, 21, 25, 95 actors 74, 106, 172 consensus and consent 182 fear 173–4 interruptions 23 as key text 32, 89

Index Littlewood, Joan 55, 58 McCaw, Dick 2, 176 mental health 180 movement 98, 99–100, 101, 103, 106 posture 101 Poulter, Chrissie 176, 179, 180 publisher 56 safety 173–4 writing 99–100 Theatre of Action 128 Theatre Quarterly (TQ). See TQ Theatre Royal Stratford East 187–9 Theatre Technis 28 Theatre Union 128 Theatre Workshop 15–16, 18, 31, 70, 128 establishing 54–6, 153, 154 legacy 162 Melvin, Murray 23 memories of 52 movement classes 96, 97–8 myth of 61 politics 71 Poulter, Chrissie 167 rehearsal and performance 56–9 Sutton, Dudley 164 Theatre Workshop Story, The (Goorney, Howard) 4, 56, 62 Thomas, Tom 152, 155 Time Out 29 TOC (The Other Company) 37 Pit, The 37 TQ (Theatre Quarterly) 18–19, 20–1, 28, 41–2 see also NTQ alternative theatre 28–9, 42 ‘Guide to Underground Theatre’ 18 trauma 113–16, 119 tribal scribes 52, 54–5, 62–3 Trussler, Simon 1, 13, 18, 21, 22 Twang!! (Bart, Lionel) 6, 14 2012 Olympic Games 131 legacy 129–35, 137–40 Tynan, Kenneth 79 Tyson, Annie 33 underground theatre 18 see also alternative theatre Unfinished Histories project 27–8, 34, 43 n. 4 Unity Theatre 127, 153

University of Birmingham 7, 20, 171–2, 182, 184, 204 female student experience 33–4 Guerrilla Theatre event 39 University of Warwick 87–93, 205, 207 Clive Barker Award 8 Valentin, Karl 156–7 New Chair, The 156 Vega, Lope de Fuente Ovejuna (The Sheep Well) 3, 56 ‘Victim games’ 182 Vietnam 154 villages 132 ‘Violence’ 182 ‘Vision and Reality: Their Very Own and Golden City and Centre 42’ (Barker, Clive) 6 Visions of Simone Machard, The (Brecht, Bertolt) 13 Voices from the Village (Dunne-Howrie, Joseph) 130–1, 137–40 Waking the Feminists campaign 187 Waterfield, Carran 39 Weill, Kurt and Brecht, Bertolt Jasager, Der 5 Mahagonny 5 Welfare State 128 Wesker, Arnold 6, 16–17 Chicken Soup with Barley 70 I’m Talking about Jerusalem 70 ‘What Training – for What Theatre’ (Barker, Clive) 9 Whelen, Christopher and Lehman, Leo Ferdinand the Matador 71 ‘When the Kissing Stopped . . . and What Happened Next’ (Barker, Clive) 177 Whitehouse, Paul and Higson, Charlie Fast Show, The 159 Whiting, John Saint’s Day 15 Wiles, John Never Had It So Good 70 Wilson, Snoo, Brenton, Howard, Clark, Brian, Griffiths, Trevor, Hare, David, Poliakoff, Stephen and Stoddart, Hugh Lay By 5

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Index women 33–5, 44 n. 20 see also feminism Women’s Theatre Group 35 Wood, Victoria 33, 184 Workers’ Theatre Movement 127, 152–3, 155 Wrocław 113, 119, 121–2 collective trauma 114, 119 European Capital of Culture [ECoC] 113 ‘Flow’ parts I and II 113, 120 Flow Quartet, The 113, 114–15, 117, 118–22, 123 history 114–15, 117, 119 ‘Mosty (‘Bridges’) 113, 120, 121–2

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‘Niebo’ (‘Heaven/Sky’) 113, 117 ‘Przebudzenie’ (‘Awakening’) 113, 120, 122 Wymark, Jane 33 Yavin, Naftali 37 You Can’t Take It With You (Kaufman, George S. and Hart, Moss) 5 Zinder, David 101–2 ZU-UK 131, 140–1 Binaural Dinner Date 131, 142 Hotel Medea 140–1 #RioFoneHack at TBW 131, 141–2

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